GAIL ALTSCHULER

Storytelling vessels inspired by drawing from observation and visits to museums and galleries.15-25cm high x 7-9cm wide, they hold water, are decorative and functional.  ​Altschuler’s playful aesthetic uses the abstract cup, beaker or tumbler shape, something we are used to holding intimately, in our hands and against our lips. She adds feet and a neck to create a vessel that is a sculptural form but is also a bud vase. Gail uses the clay or porcelain as a canvas, telling personal stories from her sketchbooks. The images of figures, faces and places are drawn using graphic techniques, Mishima inlay; etched lines filled with underglazes, Sgraffito; lines scratched through a colour, to reveal the background colour and colour washes under a transparent glaze. These graphic elements are all added before the clay is fired.  Each vessel is hand built, uniquely shaped and illustrated with narrative images from her sketchbooks.

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​The Porcelain Portrait Plates, are a collection of handmade, porcelain plates inspired by human facial expressions and human relationships. A series of porcelain plates combining coloured oxides, in ceramic slips and underglazes, painted in Gail’s unique way of using expressive brush marks. She layers the surface creating unexpected juxtapositions of loose and controlled thin and thick lines, under transparent glaze. The plates have a wall hanging disc attached on the back or are displayed on a plate stand.  The themes include; The Zoom Meetings, The Dog Walkers, The Refugees, Musicians, Travellers, Masks, Sisters, Buddhas, Children playing, At the Beach, At the Cafe and At the Met.  Porcelain plates 30 x 30cm approx.

Gail began her career as a silkscreen printer, printing large, abstract, colourful works on paper, that are used for interior design in hotels and offices.  Gail has exhibited with many galleries over the past 25 years.  Art Movement first exhibited Gail's 2D work at AAF in 1999 and we are delighted to be showing her again, with a completely new body of work in these ceramics.

Gail studied at The Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. She moved to the UK in 1989, did a PGCE and MA in Art and Design Education, at the Institute of Education, University of London.​ She has exhibited at The Contemporary Ceramic Centre opposite the British Museum, at the Icehouse and Orangery in Holland Park, The Kiln Theatre Kilburn.  Her works are to be found in private and corporate collections in the UK, Europe, USA, South Africa and Japan.