Expressions in Blue: Monumental Porcelain by Felicity Aylieff

Last night I was at the PV for two NEW exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens:

• Expressions in Blue: Monumental Porcelain by Felicity Aylieff - reviewed below;
• Botanical Blues - a selection of botanical paintings from The Shirley Sherwood Collection in Gallery 6 - which will be reviewed shortly on my Botanical Art and Artist News Blog. This showcases works from botanical artists including Susannah Blaxhill, Jinyong Feng and Ursula Romero, depicting many remarkable plant species which can be found in Kew’s Living Collections.

About the Exhibition

This is the largest solo exhibition to date of monumental ceramics in made by Felicity Aylieff. 

It's certainly a "must see" for anybody interested un unusual approaches to creating porcelain, enamelled posts and BIG pots.

 

I gather the exhibition - which opened at the weekend has attracted large numbers very keen to see the monumental porcelain. 

It's certainly an exhibition quite unlike any other exhibition I've ever seen of ceramics.

Felicity Aylieff with her monumental Qing Hua porcelain pots

I'm somewhat surprised to see it at Kew Gardens - as opposed to the shrine of ceramic treasures which can be found in the Ceramics Collection on the sixth floor and other main galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

I gather the reason it's at Kew is because 

• the gardens allow some of the monumental pots to be located outside - and there are two huge ones right outside the museum (which I couldn't see last night in the dark) but you can see in my friend Laurence Hill's photosgraphs of the exhibits
• some of the pots have been decorated with patterns derived from plants and specifically paintings included in the Shirley Sherwood Collection of Botanical Art

I think overall I'd have preferred to see an emphasis by Kew in its marketing on the particular aspects of the exhibition which relate to plants - given that this is a Gallery of BOTANICAL Art - rather than being enticed by the huge monumental blue and white pots (see publicity image above) - nice as they are.

In other words, given the exhibition is at Kew and not the V&A, what's special about the ceramics in relation to plants?

Monumental 'Qing Hua' pots decorated with cobalt blue chloride
The people at the Private View give an indication of the size of the pots

It includes:

• a selection of new, specially created blue and white works, including incredible 5-metre-tall vases painted using a vibrant range of cobalt blue oxides in a technique known as Qing Hua, a signature of Aylieff’s work.
•  a selection of colourful Fencai enamelled vessels, hand painted with designs inspired by the botanical illustrations from the Shirley Sherwood Collection.

Smaller Fencai enamelled vessels - based on plants

Fencai refers to the "powder colors" such as the lead oxide mixed colorants used for enamel decoration. See Enamels on Chinese ceramics

This new suite of Fencai enamel vessels (typically with a white background) are hand-painted with stylized designs depicting an array of plants found in China and across the world.

Additional works in this series draw inspiration from botanical illustrations in the Shirley Sherwood Collection, aligning Aylieff’s passion for plants and gardening with her spectacular ceramics, including designs inspired by tulips, lilies, peonies and hibiscus. 

Two very large Fencai pots

The exhibition also illustrates how the posts are made using different source materials, tools, sketch books and works in progress to tell the story of Aylieff’s work.

The exhibition is on until 23 March 2025.

• Entry to the Gallery is free with admission to Kew Gardens. 
• A £1 Universal Credit ticket and £9 young person's ticket are both available

About the Artist

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Acclaimed ceramic artist Felicity Aylieff is renowned for her longstanding collaborations with porcelain production workshops and artisan craftspeople in Jingdezhen, China – known as the Porcelain Capital of the world.

Her large-scale works are all hand-thrown and hand painted. Although the painting involves rather different tools and techniques to traditional painting.

On her website, you can

• read about / view her processes
• how big fat pots are thrown
• how they are then trimmed - to fit together to make monumental pots
• how the monumental posts are painted in blue and white - using an assortment of amazing brushes
• how she sketches and develops designs for the Fencai pots
• how she creates stencils for the designs to fit on each pot
• how she tests enamel colours and different colour combinations
• how stamped outlines are created
• how the glazes are applied and then fired
• examples of work in past exhibitions

Through observing their skills and techniques, traditional to Jingdezhen, I have learnt how to decorate in detail with fencai coloured enamels, to paint abstract marks in cobalt pigment with huge Chinese calligraphy brushes, and to understand the skill of carving into porcelain.

On Thursday 6 March 2025, Felicity Aylieff will be joined by historian and broadcaster Lars Tharp for a special In Conversation event, which will take place in the Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens.

An accompanying book about the exhibition and Felicity Aylieff has been published by Kew Publishing.