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Laura Murphy LSDC

Ceramics

About Laura
Laura Murphy creates delicate, translucent parian porcelain vessels with a crisp and contemporary feel, alongside sculptural botanically-themed organic structures, juxtaposing strength with fragility. The Hydrangea series was inspired by research into Seasonal Affective Disorder and the use of light in treatment. Working with a limited palette of striking colours against the ice-white clay her ceramics feature fluid patterns inspired by botanical structures and movement across rural landscapes such as a swallow’s flight, a ripple across a wheat field and the flow of a river.
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Laura Murphy designs and makes delicate, translucent vessels and sculpted pieces from her studio in Oxfordshire, using traditional white parian clay. Working with a limited palette of striking colours against the ice-white clay her ceramics feature fluid patterns inspired by botanical structures and movement across rural landscapes such as a swallow’s flight, a ripple across a wheat field and the flow of a river.

Each piece features thin walls, and the fired parian clay is highly translucent, producing a radiant glow when interacting with light. Light itself is a key consideration in all of Laura's work, both in terms of contrasting translucent white clay with the opaque colour decoration, and also in terms of the weight of the work. Items are easy to handle and often have a 'lighter than air' quality. Vessels are slip-cast from plaster moulds made by Laura, usually from forms thrown on the wheel. The simple forms offer a blank canvas for the fluid movement of thin colour trails.

Laura’s Torquil Tree series was developed during an artist residency and features hand painted vessels that celebrate the striking silhouette of trees in winter, with thinned undulating rims echoing misty horizons. Her Hydrangea series of sculptural work started from one tiny petal skeleton to create a selection of highly translucent, delicate latticework pieces of increasing size, inspired by research into the effect of natural light in seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

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Having completed an MA in Ceramics at the University of Wolverhampton in 2014, Laura now works from her studio in Oxfordshire.

Personal highlights include an Artist-in-Residence role at Torquil Pottery & The Gallery Upstairs and collaborating on a large installation (Pleasuredome) for the Kubla Khan series of contemporary ormolu by Maison Lignereux (2017). For further details of shows, exhibitions and stockists, please see www.lauramurphyceramics.com.

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