Magdalene Odundo exhibition in London

August 7, 2024 admin ceramics, Dame Magdalene Odundo, exhibition

An exhibition of the striking clay vessels of Dame Magdalene Odundo will take place at Thomas Dane Gallery at No. 3 Duke Street, St James’s in London from October 9 to December 14.

Presenting a series of her unique sculptural clay vessels, this will be Odundo’s first solo exhibition in London in over two decades.

Known for her refined forms and profound understanding of clay’s universal capacity for material storytelling, the ceramics artist draws influence from a broad compass of historical and contemporary making practices. Her work embodies her research into traditional techniques and vernacular ceramic traditions across the world, exploring diasporic identity and recognising the power of objects as repositories of intercultural meaning.

Odundo’s vessels are informed by references as diverse as British studio pottery, ancient ceramics, traditional ceremonial vessels from Kenya and Nigeria, and modernist sculpture.

Following a solo show at Houghton Hall in Norfolk earlier this year, this exhibition will present recent hand-built works carefully made over the course of several months. Often anthropomorphic in their references to the female body, Odundo’s vessels strike a balance between the physical and the spiritual; between strength and fragility; between permanence and ephemerality.

She also finds equal inspiration in manmade objects and the natural world, Odundo’s expressive and deeply resonant ceramics offer a striking formal synthesis of the organic and the crafted, the elemental and the refined.

Odundo received her initial training as a graphic artist in Kenya before moving to the UK in 1971. She studied at the Cambridge School of Art (now Anglia Ruskin University), the University for the Creative Arts and the Royal College of Art.

In 2018, Odundo was appointed Chancellor of the University for Creative Arts (UCA) and was made a Dame in the Queen’s New Year Honours list in 2020. She has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at Houghton Hall, Norfolk, England (2024); the Gardiner Museum, Toronto, Canada (2023-2024); The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, England and Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, England (2019); The High Museum of Art, Atlanta GA (2017); British Council, Nairobi, Kenya (2005); Blackwell House, Bowness-on-Windermere, England (2001); The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian, Washington D.C. (1995); Stedelijk Museum Voor Hedendaagse Kunst, s’Hertogenbosch, Netherlands (1994); Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany; and Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe, Germany (1992).

Her work is in the collections of many national and international museums including The British Museum, The V&A, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi.