Lucy Burley

Lucy Burley started making ceramics in London in 1992, after an earlier career in television.  Having completed a foundation course at Wimbledon Art School, she  went on to gain a BA Hons in Ceramics at Camberwell College of Arts. After graduating in 1996 Lucy worked in shared studios in Battersea and was a member of London Potters.  She moved to Farnham in 2000 and had a studio at Farnham Pottery, and then a rural studio in Kingsley, Hampshire. Lucy now works from a garden studio at home. As well as her own pottery practice, Lucy also taught ceramics to adults and children.

Lucy's vessels are made on the potters wheel, using white earthenware clay. Her work explores the relationship between form and colour, and is inspired by the still-life paintings of Giorgio Morandi. Lucy strives for the simplicity and stillness conveyed by his pictures of groups of bottles and other vessels. Lucy's pots have the same sense of being in family groups, related but non-identical. While studying at Camberwell Lucy formulated a smooth, semi-matt earthenware glaze, she uses this as a base to which she adds oxides and stains to obtain a spectrum of colours. These colours are both subtle and vivid, the inspiration for which comes from nature: flowers, fruit, the landscape, birds’ eggs, the sky and seashore.   As Morandi said, “What interests me most is expressing what is in nature, in the visible world”.