Lucinda Mudge | Solo

About

“The pot as decorative storyboard was popularised by the ancient Greeks”, notes writer, Victoria Woodcock.** Mudge’s pictorial pottery draws inspiration from a wide variety of references – from pop culture and cartoon strips, to fabric and textile designs, Art Deco and poetry – resulting in whimsical collisions of the popular and refined, the beautiful and sometimes violent - unsurprisingly in a country notorious for its dark humour as survival mechanism.

Captivating the eye with their luxuriant glazes and intricate detail, Mudge’s vases encompass all of life. Images unfold with a filmic quality, revealing the artist’s witty, outrageous and provocative musings with all their contradictions, riddles and yearnings.

“I have been making ceramics for over a decade, relentlessly pursuing my practice, despite the country’s battles with dwindling and irregular electricity supply,” says Mudge. 2023 was a particularly challenging year and rolling power outages across South Africa meant she was able to fire her kiln only a handful of times. And so Mudge turned to painting – a medium in which she has always felt at home. At the same time her husband and brother fashioned a new hybrid solar kiln system for her. “This new body of work was fired using the new kiln – a major breakthrough for me,” observes the artist. “With these light, tranquil paintings and heavy gold ceramic vases, my ambition for this exhibition is to bring a sense of balance.”

Mudge’s paintings are infused with a kindred vitality and spirit. Foliage, feathers, birds, abstract shapes and symbols cascade down her canvases or swirl with the dizzying energy of an eddy. “Painting and ceramics have formed a neat duo in my studio,“ says Mudge. “This exhibition was made by sharing my time and attention equally on both mediums.”

* Jo Buitendach, A cackling cauldron of female creativity, Financial Mail, BusinessLive, March 2023

** Victoria Woodcock, The Potters Tale, Financial Times, November 2023