EMILIE TAYLOR

“Folklore, feminism, and our relationship to the land tend to be themes that dominate my book shelves. I am also interested in places where we come together to expend energy as a community- be it at a church or at a rave- the power of the talisman or the scapegoat and where this is allowed to manifest in the contemporary town or city.”

Emilie Taylor is an artist based in Sheffield. Her work combines large-scale studio ceramics with a socially engaged practice, and she uses heritage crafts, particularly traditional slipware, to interpret and represent post-industrial landscapes. Emilie is interested in the vessel or container as a metaphor for how we seek to contain communities within British society and has a history of representing the lives of women and girls marginalised in the urban environment.

I often use ancient stories, myths or legends as a starting point for the narrative on the plates or the pots, but the characters and places become the people I know and the places I live in the north of England.

An Ancient Historian I know puts it well when he says ‘While history is written by the victors, pottery is always of the people’. I am always mindful that I am part of a history of potters whose work outlasts us and goes on to inform future civilisations about how we used to live. 

Slipware, an English heritage craft, has always told a combination of personal and political stories through the naïve images dripped or scratched onto the pots surface, from the coronations of kings to local marriages and deaths. I hope to make slipware of today, that tells the stories that are often overlooked, and sneak them into institutions and collections around the country.

Emilie regularly exhibits in the UK and internationally, and will be showing as part of ‘Lives Less Ordinary’ at Two Temple Place, London, in January 2025. An exhibition celebrating the richness and diversity of working class lives. Her work is part of several public collections including Gallery Oldham, Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, Bradford Museums, the Williamson Gallery, Birkenhead and The V&A. In 2022 she was recipient of the Cynthia Corbett Gallery & Young Masters ‘Focus on the Female’ Award.