Gillian Lowndes was born in Cheshire and spent her childhood in India. She studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and later at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1960 she returned to London and established a studio in Bloomsbury. In the early 1970s she travelled to Nigeria and her enduring interest in ethnographic work, from her childhood and African travels, has had a major influence on her work. Lowndes’ works occupy an undefined space between the craft and fine art worlds; her experimentation with form and materials provides a continual challenge to orthodox ceramics. She has said of her own work that it is the methods and materials that produce the ideas, not the other way round. The choice of materials and the assemblage of pieces lead her towards the object and this process gives her work a strangeness that is visually rich, yet her work is still rooted with the ceramic process and material.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/nov/18/gillian-lowndes-obituary

 

Glossary

  • Assemblage

    The use of non-art objects and found materials, often junk and/or debris, to create art works. The disparate elements are 'assembled' by gluing, welding or other techniques. Assemblage can be looked at as the three-dimensional counterpart of collage, and similarly traces its origin to Pablo Picasso's and George Braque’s collaborations in 1912-14. This technique was particularly used in the late 1950s and 1960s and continues to be employed by many contemporary artists today.

  • Ceramics

    Clay based products produced from non-metallic material and fired at high temperature. The term covers all objects made of fired clay, including earthenware, porcelain, stoneware and terra cotta.

  • Craft

    The creation of handmade objects intended to be both useful and decorative.