Christie Brown is a Professor of Ceramics at the University of Westminster and she has worked as a ceramic artist from her studio at Kingsgate Workshops since 1982. She has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad and she was artist in residence at Hunter College, New York during summer 2006. Her most recent show, Collective Traces; A Response to the Petrie Museum , funded by the AHRC, was shown at the Institute of Archaeology in London last year. A section of it will be displayed in the Egyptian Galleries at the Manchester Museum in 2007. Her work is in several private and public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Christie Brown's mostly figurative practice has embraced both the re-examination of the discipline through history and the exploration of new approaches to presentation through installation and intervention in museums, informed by an interest in our relationship with objects, especially those of an archaic nature which are to be found in museum collections. Archaeology presents a fragmented narrative of past lives and holds parallels with the practice of psychoanalysis where layers are carefully stripped away to reveal hidden information. She is interested in the mythology and symbolism associated with clay and its relationship with other materials such as wax, bronze and plaster. Clay is a transformative material which relates to ideas about metamorphoses and her artefacts can be seen as embodiments of transformation and transition through contemporary rites of passage.
CV
RECENT Exhibitions
2001
Recent Sculpture , Perimeter Gallery, Chicago USA (solo) British Studio Ceramics , Philadelphia Clay Studio, USA Figurative Ceramics , Crafts Council Shop at the V&A, London. Ikons of Identity , Craftspace Touring, Various UK venues.
2002
About Face , Croydon Clocktower Museum, Croydon.
2003
Sterling Stuff, Pangolin Gallery, toured to Iceland and Royal Academy. Between the Dog and the Wolf , Kingsgate Gallery, London.(solo)
2004
Christie Brown and Heidi Morstang , London Gallery West, Harrow. The Human Figure , Rufford Craft Centre, Nottingham.
2005
Celebrating 30 Years , Crafts Council Shop at the V&A, London.
The Fragmented Figure , University of Wales Institute Cardiff Body Language , Pangolin Gallery, Stroud.
2006 Collective Traces: a Response to the Petrie Museum, Institute of Archaeology, London. (solo) Foundation Deposits , Hunter College, New York(solo)
recent Publications
2006
Embodying Transformation , paper given at the Fragmented Figure conference, UWIC, and the Storytelling and Poetry seminar, International Ceramics Centre, Guldagergaard, Denmark. Published in online refereed journal, Interpreting Ceramics issue 8
Collective Traces, paper given at the exhibition seminar, Institute of Archaeology, London. published in Ceramics Technical (Aus) issue 23.