Jane L MacFarlane

BA (Hons) Ceramics

I collect ceramics because I feel connections in the stories that they embody. I see them as gateways to the tacit complexities of lives lived. Objects can tell stories; they just need a voice.

My Ceramic practice invites collaboration by asking audiences to lend my practice objects that hold meaning to them. Often these objects bear the scars of their existence, and it is these memories and tales that I seek to reinvigorate by making material interventions that shift their context, giving rise to new form, narratives, and relevance.

These new narratives by their nature, comment on the commodification of perfection, consumption and obsolescence which conversely highlight the emotional legacies, historical provenance and sentimental meanings that traverse the human connections with the objects.

My collaborative approach highlights a faith in fairness, diversity, and authenticity. My work with gifted objects ultimately becomes a comment on the value and diversity of contemporary art. Completed work is returned to the guardians, in an exercise of dissemination of value and worth.


Rwy’n casglu cerameg am fy mod i’n teimlo cysylltiadau yn y straeon maent yn eu hymgorffori. Rwy’n eu gweld yn byrth i gymhlethdodau distaw bywydau sy’n cael eu byw. Gall gwrthrychau ddweud straeon; mae ond angen llais arnynt.

Mae fy ymarfer Ceramig yn gwahodd cydweithrediad drwy ofyn i gynulleidfaoedd roi benthyg gwrthrychau i’m hymarfer sy’n dal ystyr iddynt. Yn aml mae’r gwrthrychau hyn yn dwyn creithiau eu bodolaeth, a dyma’r atgofion a’r chwedlau rwy’n ceisio eu hatgyfodi drwy wneud ymyriadau materol sy’n newid eu cyd-destun, gan arwain at ffurf, naratifau a pherthnasedd newydd.

Mae’r naratifau hyn, wrth eu natur, yn rhoi sylwadau ar fasnacheiddio perffeithrwydd, defnydd a darfodiad sydd i’r gwrthwyneb yn amlygu treftadaethau emosiynol, tarddiad hanesyddol ac ystyron synhwyrol sy’n croesi’r cysylltiadau dynol â’r gwrthrychau.

Mae fy null cydweithredol yn amlygu ffydd mewn tegwch, amrywiaeth, a dilysrwydd. Mae fy ngwaith gyda gwrthrychau a fu’n rhoddion yn y pen draw yn cynnig sylw ar werth ac amrywiaeth celf gyfoes. Mae’r gwaith gorffenedig yn cael ei ddychwelyd i’r gwarcheidwaid, er mwyn lledaenu gwerth a theilyngdod.

Other Exhibitors:

Rosie Harman

Rosie Harman

My work expresses the personal: the highs and lows of the lived experience, illustrated through an enlivening combination of colour and pattern, figuration...

Faye Green

Faye Green

As a maker I am inspired by historical events and the people around me, transforming this into unique illustrations applied to a diverse collection of surfaces...

Emily Whitworth

Emily Whitworth

My work explores the energy and vibrancy I see in the world that surrounds me. The work is a mirror of the qualities I see. Using extruders, slips and glazes I...

Clare Stephens

Clare Stephens

My previous profession as a midwife compliments the values and ideas within my ceramics, fostering an appreciation of diversity, unity, fragmentation and...

Nicholas Stenhouse

Nicholas Stenhouse

Material Synergies: Capturing the Immediacy of Thought & Feeling As an artist, I employ the agency of ceramics to anchor my subjective emotion. The work in turn...

Mattie Amatt

Mattie Amatt

Mapping our Sensorial Field To live in the world is a bodily experience; we are formed in part by the textures, sounds, smells and shapes that surround us as...