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Emilie Taylor, Without Constancy (After 'Spinster's Rock' by Sam Haile), c. 2025
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Sam Haile, Shepard Plate, c. 1941
Exhibition
Concious Clay
18 Jan 2025 – 28 Jun 2025
Regular hours
- Monday
- Closed
- Tuesday
- Closed
- Wednesday
- 13:00 – 16:00
- Thursday
- Closed
- Friday
- 13:00 – 16:00
- Saturday
- 11:00 – 16:00
- Sunday
- 11:00 – 16:00
Cost of entry
£5 Entry
Address
- 48 Park Row
- Bristol
England - BS1 5LH
- United Kingdom
A sixth-month evolving exhibition that centres around Surrealist Sam Haile's Ceramics and contemporary ceramist Emily Taylor.
About
Conscious Clay brings together the work of Sam Haile (1909–48) and Emilie Taylor (b. 1980), exploring how ceramics can express social and political ideas. Haile’s Surrealist slipware reflects the turbulence of the 1930s and 40s, using earthenware pots as canvases for storytelling.
For this exhibition, Emilie Taylor was invited to create new work responding to Haile’s Three Spinsters (1947). Her large-scale, hand-built pots draw on themes of myth and women’s experiences, referencing both historical legend and contemporary urban life. Inscribed with seventeenth-century chants once used to demonise women, Taylor’s ceramics challenge how women are seen in public and decorative spaces, contrasting warnings with images of joy, vitality, and community. Exhibited together, the works of Haile and Taylor offer a compelling conversation about storytelling, resistance, and the continuing relevance of clay.
Conscious Clay is on view until 28 June, with works by Emilie Taylor available for purchase from 9 May.
