145th Royal Ulster Academy of Arts Exhibition
I was thrilled to to have my work selected for the 145th Royal Ulster Academy of Arts exhibition, held at the beautiful Ulster Museum at Botanic Gardens in Belfast.
My piece is titled 'Resilience' - a large ceramic wall sculpture in the form of an anatomical heart. I was so stressed about this piece even being entered in the exhibition as it is a hefty sculpture for a wall, weighing about 7.5kg - roughly 26 times the weight of a real human heart.
This piece was a very cathartic make as I took a hammer to it after its glaze firing. There is more control over the breaking of the fragments than you'd imagine, so I went a bit further than originally intended - it was just too much fun smashing it up! I took each piece and applied a range of open stock over-glaze decals. I get these from the brilliant Bailey Decal whos based in Stoke-on-Trent - if you ever get to go to their show room they have the most incredible binders filled of every decal I think ever made?! These were a mix of traditional floral and chintz patterns. Once applied and allowed to settle, they were fired to approximately 770 degrees celcius.
The kiln did look a bit mental after packing all these bits of broken heart into it but I was so excited to get to the re-building stage of this piece. I didn't want the joins to be 'beautiful', instead I wanted quite an obvious and ugly knitting together between the fragments. I used a really strong bonding adhesive first and after it had set and cured I was able to go back and add the golden joins.
I made these Fragment Vases in 2009 (so please excuse the potato quality photo) in a similar style. Here is the artist statement for them:
I’m fascinated with age and memory, specifically the value it incorporates into objects and people. I developed this by manipulating the worth of a classic ceramic form by de-constructing its structure and rebuilding the form again using a similar technique to golden joinery or ‘kintsugi’. This Japanese philosophy embraces and cherishes the crack or breakage as the history of the object, rather than something that is typically disguised. The integral pieces needed to regain the function of the vases were sold as brooches, giving the wearer the missing fragment of the vases memory.The form of the vase was spun on the lathe out of plaster, this was cast and used as a mould to create the slip casted form. After it was brought up to 1000° Celsius for bisque, the vase was then fired to 1300° Celsius before it was smashed into fragments. One of three vases, this process was done collectively as to which one fragment could be joined to a piece from a different vase. Each fragment was then decaled separately before being brought together finally to reconstruct the form. Not standing correctly and missing sections that are integral to its form, the vases become shadows of themselves, desperately clinging on to the vital and precious pieces that remain.
I wanted this heart to be a celebration of its own personal journey and couldn't resist adding flowers into its arteries to really show it thriving despite what appears to have been through a tumultuous experience. It also reminded me of my time at university where a tutor had said if something doesn't quite go to plan with the making then just stick a flower in it and call it a vase.
A huge part of what I love about the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts exhibition is that the open application process ensures that work is selected on face value. No artist CV or artist statement is required, only a title and photograph of the piece at the first stage of selection then delivery of the piece for in-person assessment, so it's a very accessable 'what you see is what you get' application process. I get that perhaps it would be a disadvantage for some work but with this piece especially it's very relatable imagery - it's a broken heart rebuilt with gold. It has been a few years since I was part of this annual exhibition, so after selection I was surprised to be asked to supply an artist statement on the work to coincide with the exhibition for their online artist guide.
There was a bit of reluctance as I didn't want to 'brand' the piece with my statement, instead I wanted people to connect with their own interpretation of it with its title. But of course it makes sense in an exhibition like this, it is such an eclectic and themeless show, not to mention the fantastic education programme arranged too so it's always a joy to find out more information about the works.
Artist statement for 'Resilience' 2026
Resilience is a fractured and rebuilt ceramic anatomical heart, demonstrating the journey of motherhood. It especially reflects the intimate grief of becoming a mother without my own mother's presence due to her dementia, and so mothering without the practical and emotional support her role would have traditionally provided. In a cathartic process, after it was fired and glazed, the sculpture was deliberately smashed. Each fragments surface had an open-stock decal applied, imitating the twee and kitschy ceramic homeware that decorated cabinets or would have been part of everyday life in my childhood home. I wanted the heart to appear as though it had been an assemblidge of mismatched and clashing fragments, to mimic how my personal experience of mothering felt at times. I wanted the hearts surface decoration to demonstrate a familiar and domestic aesthetic from the period of time I would have witnessed my mother in her prime role. I now yearned for my children to have experienced their grandmother in her peak, and wanted to encapsulate that alongside the grief that she also can't experience it. After a third and final kiln firing, the jigsaw puzzle-like pieces of the heart were rejoined and unified with gold, tracing each repair line. Like kintsugi, the fractures are not hidden; they are celebrated at the surface, revealing the lived experience and form the structure of the heart. The gold 'fault lines' of the heart portray the strength found in love, adaption and repair, building a version of motherhood that honours the resilience required to continue.
I loved this quote from the new President of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts, Peter Richards in the catalogues introduction as I could not agree more;
We must continue to make it possible for a child from a rural school to stand in front of an original work of art.
The Royal Ulster Academy of Arts exhibition opened on 18 October 2026 and continues until 3 January 2027. It is located on the 5th Floor (through the double doors to the right out of the elevator) and opening hours coincide with the Ulster Museum - Tuesday - Sunday 10am to 5pm.
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