Review of exhibition - Felicity Aylieff at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, until 23 March 2025

Nicole Hollingworth reviews the pottery exhibition at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew.

If you’ve not yet had the opportunity to see the Exhibition, Expressions in Blue Monumental Porcelain by Felicity Aylieff, it is well worth doing so before it ends.

The vessels on display are huge and spectacular and are the culmination of a collaboration between Aylieff and potters in Jingdezhen, China, an area specialising in porcelain production. Here work is created as a collaborative process with a variety of craftsmen working on different aspects of a single piece. The exhibition includes a fascinating film showing the different ways these artists work together, how a series of single pieces are thrown (often by a group of potters working in unison due to the immense scale involved), before being joined to form one vast vessel. The decorating process is just as cumbersome. In the footage we see Aylieff standing on scaffolding to reach the highest points and even throwing paint at the pots.

Aylieff says, ‘painting at scale is liberating; I love working with huge calligraphy brushes, proportionate in size to the pots. Employing my entire body, I build up layers of rich blue tones”.

In addition to these monumental blue and white vessels, there are also pots illustrated using the Fencai method, a more precise form, depicting botanical images which are applied directly onto white glazed surfaces using Chinese ink and coloured in pastel shades. The ink disappears during firing. This meticulous method of decoration is beautifully captured in the stunning, enamelled vases on show.

This exhibition is truly impressive and not to be missed.

See more information Here.

Review and photos by Nicole Hollingworth, potter and PSAD Friends trustee.