Spiritual GPS
Solo exhibition at Omnibus Galleri, Oslo, 2025
South Pointing Fish -- 58 x 95 x 48
In 2025 I began visiting Neolithic sites near my childhood home in southern England, among them Silbury Hill (c. 2400 BC) and the causewayed enclosure on Windmill Hill (c. 3700 BC). Both are part of the Avebury landscape, built on chalk by some of Britain's earliest farming communities. Today they are also surrounded by stories of geomagnetism and earth energies, and I became interested in the space between what these monuments are made of, what archaeology can and can't tell us about them, and what people still imagine about them.
Spiritual GPS brought these visits into the studio. I mixed clay with chalk and magnetite and fired it at different temperatures and in different atmospheres. Alongside these tests were hand-built sculptures based on compasses, scales and door knockers: forms for searching and finding one's bearings on supposedly familiar ground. Magnetite, in its essence, always moves towards a connection.
South Pointing Fish -- Ceramic, glaze, water, cork, magnetised needle pointing south, salt
The compass - dependant on its incorporation of magnetite, was developed during the Han Dynasty (200 BCE-220CE). Beyond our functional conception of the compass, it had a spiritual origin which connected the personal to the cosmos. Initially inscribed with concentric rings of symbols and systems, which all related to the cosmos and the natural world: the constellations, the eight trigrams of the I Ching and twenty-four cardinal directions.
Where does the time go? -- Clay, glaze, grout. Material tests include: magnetite, slag, copper oxide, chalk, fishing thread, clay
Detail shots: Where does the time go?
Where does the time go? -- 42 x 52 x 8
Seven Senses of a Shrimp -- ceramic and motor. 49 x 36 x 23
Seven Senses of a Shrimp -- kinetic knocker hits three times every ten minutes
Electronic collaboration with artist Rajat Mondal
Throughout the exhibition appears ceramic crustaceans, this speaks to the ability for some fish and shellfish to orient themselves using the earths magnetic field. Tiny crystals of magnetite have been found in various invertebrates and they could act like microscopic compass needles inside their cells.
Crab amulet -- Ceramic
Fish Amulet -- Ceramic
Upstairs: Hill Series -- Ceramic and decal, photography: Alice Davies
Silbury Hill, 2025
Windmill Hill, 2025
These ceramics show Windmill hill and Silbury hill, both pictures were taken at dawn. At dawn, the earths magnetic field strengthens as sunlight reaches the atmosphere.
