Curated by Elizabeth Jackson & Emily Stapleton Jefferis

Undergrowth as a concept can be utilised to reflect on the hidden often overlooked layers of existence – narrative spaces that hold complexity and vitality, undergrowth as what persists beneath the visible structures of society. Ideas and processes create a dialogue between language, nature, and the physicality of the material at the unruly margins.

Curated by Elizabeth Jackson and Emily Stapleton Jefferis, this exhibition grows out of a mutual interest in undergrowth as both a conceptual framework and a living ecosystem, informed by speculative fiction, vegetal philosophy and embodied material knowledge.

Engaging imagination and material understanding to contemporary environmental concerns, Undergrowth brings together artists who use clay to build open, associative narratives rather than straightforward representation. They exemplify the rhythms, resilience, and mutual entanglements of ceramic object making and vegetal thinking.

The work in the exhibition interacts with a structured grid, inviting viewers to engage with the work from multiple angles, the ceramic objects resist this uniformity, organic forms break free from this constraint. This is where the unseen energies of the natural world emerge as quiet, powerful presences within the gallery space.

Exhibiting artists: Elizabeth Jackson, Emily Stapleton Jefferis, Jo Pearl, Lisa Hellrup, Meichen Chen, Mingshu Li, Raphael Emine, Safia Hijos, Sisse Holst Pedersen