About
Justine has been primarily working with hand-built porcelain since leaving Camberwell College of Art in 1998. Her work addresses the boundaries between function and decoration. Form is paramount: function is a driving motivation, but it is the aesthetics of a piece that are key to her making.
The early influences on Justin’s work came from London; buildings, windows, streets and sounds remain with her although she is living now in rural Wales.
Her work is very much concerned with the simplicity and beauty of the clay and incorporating pattern and texture as well as glaze to create subtle, unique variations. Thinness and movement are very important in each piece. This particular body of work shows a development of interest within grouping of vessels.
“Lines and Oscillation” presents imposing and quiet forms in close proximity to each other, from different heights and angles the dynamic relationships shift and change, the scale of each vessel allows the clay to move in a more tense yet natural way.
Curator Ceri Jones describes Justine Allison’s intricately crafted vessels as eloquent and uplifting. Effectively so because of their unassuming presence. Light is attracted to them, held, and radiates from them. There is a quietude to Justine’s work that reflects both the meditative process of its making and the grace of the finished forms.
“They are not perfect, they are precise. They have strong lines and soft colours. They are fixed forms that convey movement. They are vessels that make us hold our breath.”
