Caroline Earley’s ceramics look as if they are made to be held and caressed. They are intimate studies of shape and form, and the thick, soft glaze adds to the sense of organic malleability they possess. Suggestive of bio-organisms from primordial seas, they appear in the process of metamorphosis or reproduction.

The Clinch works are iterations of the piece which won the premier prize at the 2016 Portage Ceramics Awards. Throughout centuries traditional ceramic vessels have referenced the human form and we see this in Earley’s works too. The Clinch forms have limbs and waists; they clasp one another in pairs, separate but inseparable.

As objects, Earley’s ceramics explore the ways in which volume can be expressed and contained. Their shapes and mass indicate an interior but this is unavailable to the viewer. In combination with one another however, individual pieces and sets of pieces create new configurations of in-between, relational spaces.