Phoebe Collings-James
The subtle rules the dense
The Subtle Rules the Dense is a series of masks/torsos/body plates that Phoebe Collings-James cast from mannequins and then worked by hand. The resulting objects lie ambiguously between a representation of a human torso and a shamanistic mask. The work is reminiscent of Yoruba and Makonde body masks that portray pregnant forms, as well as Roman armor with nipple rings. Collings-James synthesizes these sources into a ceramic sculpture that is simultaneously menacing, erotic, male, and female. The work references the complexity of the human organism and its fragility, its ability to bleed out. It speaks to race, cultural origin, sexuality, and gender, but exists in a state of constant becoming as it oscillates between torso and face—coming into being and becoming undone. As armor and masquerade the object signifies something that protects, shields, and hides human vulnerability. Collings-James’s use of sgraffito, glazes, slips, and oxides is intuitive and complex, endowing the work with a variety of textures, and has its roots in painting and drawing as much as the tradition of ceramics.
Phoebe Collings-James' work engages with experiences of hybridity, referring to the work of writer Sylvia Wynter as a route through which to decipher relations to Western ceramics as well as her own familial origins. Collings-James identifies as non-binary, multi-gendered, Black and British— with ancestral roots in Jamaica. Her work explores the themes of violence, fear, sexuality, and desire. Shirin Neshat, Ghada Amer, Adrian Piper and Sonia Boyce were all early influences on the artist, showing her that she “could sew or write or dance or swear and it could be art”. Her work speaks of vulnerability, eroticism, and of Black and Queer identities in the contemporary world.
Collings-James first took up ceramics during a residency in Italy and has since made it her principal medium, though she also works with sound, installation, painting and performance. After spending time in New York, the artist returned to London in 2019 where she founded Mudbelly, initially for her own research purposes, but now also a ceramics studio offering free courses in ceramics for Black people in London.