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Karen Shapley
Ceramicist
Karen Shapley is a ceramic/textile artist creating a range of ceramic objects resembling domestic tea ephemera. Her pieces are a playful, contemporary reflection of a bygone age when tea parties and domestic decadence were everyday occurrences.
From the press release of The Material Treasures of Karen Shapley at Cupola Contemporary Art 2021
“This body of work is the culmination of many years of making and storytelling. I studied Contemporary Crafts at Manchester Metropolitan University specialising in textiles and ceramics.
The course was aimed at developing skills in your chosen subjects, leaving University with a craft that you could develop.
I set up a ceramic studio and sold non functional teapots, jugs, cups and saucers this was the start of my connection with story telling . Engaging Domestics was all about the domestic world, how these mundane objects over time become elevated to treasures removing them from their domestic role to become purely decorative items. Jugs are always filled for decoration with flowers however I called my jugs Memory jugs with the use of textiles emphasising the connection between ceramics and textiles in the domestic setting.
Two solo shows one in Leek and the other taking over a florists shop in Eccleshall gave me the opportunity to develop the narrative . No Peas for Jane illustrated a domestic world where one felt that someone just stepped out of the room …. It related to all sorts of stories from my childhood and enabled me to explore further the love of storytelling through objects.
Making continued and I realised I wanted to experiment with figurative work. Along came Betty and her sisters . I acquired three scratch built sewing boxes each filled with a variety of sewing paraphernalia. Inside one box was a miniature holiday souvenir, a spy glass that held a snapshot of three elderly sisters in their matching arran cardigans. The story unfolded before me and enabled way of working figuratively.
I discovered a true love of making characters, these developed into animals. A nature lover at heart, as a child my father would frequently take me out for nature walks. These involved moments standing still and quiet whilst my father spotted birds. Life in the countryside was a little brutal at that time and I often saw trophy dead crows, moles, rooks etc dangling from farmers fences. I knew then that nature and life wasn’t all plain sailing and cosy, it had a harsh reality that I freely accepted. In my work to date I have added tokens and old fabrics to tell this story of life through animals.
Follow the Line to the Ha Ha and beyond and Roll Up Roll Up were two exhibitions involving purely animals and a fantastical world. A world as a child I loved to disappear into, Peter rabbit and Mr McGregors garden evolving as I grew up to The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and The hobbit. The grim details in Watership down were no shock I had seen death before as a child.
I had to part with my ceramic studio the factory made life too hard with no heating and cold water, so I have moved on with my work. I realise now sometimes as a crafts person you can get absorbed with the idea of the craft and forget the true reason you are making, that of telling a story, creating a connection. To this end I realise that I can repurpose and use any material to be creative. In the last two years a bereavement and the pandemic have directIy affected what I make and are maybe more personal stories. I have journeyed into using found old ceramics, seashells, old boxes , there is no limit to the variety of material I can use as long as it enables me to create a story, a narrative for myself and the observer.”