Ceramic Art London 2024 and UK trip

- April 28, 2024

This post is about my last week trip to UK.

I went specifically to visit CAL24 ( Ceramic Art London ) exhibition. But when I started to make bookings I was thinking that why not make a week long trip out of it. So, I did book tickets to CAL, couple nights in London and rest of the stay in Rye, Sussex.

I am still buzzing. It was great solo trip with freedom to do what I wanted and go where I wanted. There is plenty to do in London and in Sussex. London highlights were for me CAL of course and Leighton House.

I visited CAL first time but as I understood it is actually over 20 years running annual event. This year it was held fist time in Olympia, London. There were over 100 ceramist represented. That was such a treat for me.

Below is my picks from the trip.

Cleo Mussi

At the CAL her booth draw attention with very large Mosaic woman covering big part of the back wall.

Because she uses a lot of clean white mosaic pieces the ones that have pattern on them pop out. Also it gives elegance and airiness to her work. I absolutely love her style. The green book in my photo is catalog of the exhibition and here what it says there about her:

" Cleo Mussi is an established and yet maverick ceramicist, drawing gestural figurative mosaics from repurposed historical ceramic tableware. Working within folk tradition she creates contemporary, elegant, decorative and political pieces within humor and a lightness of touch. Mussi marshals inherent properties gleaned from patterns, marks, forms, colour and text into a world of narratives reflecting the time that we live in".

Here is her stand. I bought her book and she was kind enough to sign it for me. Well...she draw her hand and signed it for me.

I could not buy her art piece this time since I already had my budget limit reached, but next time...

The book is a treat. I will spend many happy hours with it.

Links: https://mussimosaics.co.uk/

Insta @cleomussimosaics

Jaaeun Kim

Before I went to CAL I followed them on instagram where they posted info about artists participating. Jaaeun Kim works draw my attention because of perfect size and shape of these vases. I also loved bold colors she uses. In fact I was quite sure to pick one of her yellow vases but when I was standing there pink and green combo was irrisistible.

From catalog " My ceramic works include a hand-made fine stoneware design range of vases, and unique objects. The works represent HTP ( House-Tree-Person) objects which are widely used in art therapy as a form of psychotherapy, to find clues about the person's hidden emotions. Each vase describes a unique story of a "journey back home".

Here is her stand from the exhibition

I need to add that I went there on 3rd and last day. The stands were not as filles as you can imagine. I think this event was a success for all ceramists and collectors.

Links: https://www.jaeeunceramics.com/

Insta: @jaeeunceramics

And now my favourite: Louise Bell

As soon as I saw her works on instagram, I knew I want one. There is nostalgy in children's toys and then there is also something sculptural about children's toys. I also told her that her works for some reason remind me archaeological dig finds...just the coloring and the fade of them. She said I nailed it. PS! I had not read any reviews yet about her work at that time. So the message came through to me.

Extraction from catalog tells the same:

"Louise's ceramic " Ancient Toys" are inspired by the universal appeal of toys, with her sources dating back as far as 1600BC. They are all unique, hand built domestic-scal sculptures with multi-layered surfaces and multi-layered meanings. The surface treatment of this collection gives the impression of precious objects being rescued from the earth".

This ceramic "The tiger and the geese "is inspired by antique Indian toy. It swings :)

Links: https://www.louisebellceramics.com/

Insta: louisebell_ceramics

Here she is in her stand packing my purchase

The Fox is a folding card by Mark Hearld's Menagerie series.

This I did not purchase from CAL it was sold in one of the National Trust houses shop that I visited in Sussex. It is just darling.

These are also sold at www.art-angels.co.uk

Here is a link to great video on YouTube that I found

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geakFu2Uboo

Below I will post some highlight pictures of the rest of my trip. Highlights were Charleston visit (home of the Bells from Bloomsbury Group and National Trust buildings of the area. I stayed in Rye and its old town is told to be "the most beautiful town" in UK. I have not seen big part of UK but I confirm Rye is utterly charming. The first pic is Rye famous Mermaid street.