Alex Bray

When all the other stuff is done and over,

What’s left behind – the afterglow

I’m interested in the tipping point between the way things have always been and what comes next.

Using porcelain – delicate and translucent, yet strong – my work explores ideas of change. Porcelain is a tricky material for a ceramicist to work with  – she has a will of her own and can shift and change under fire.

After a year of change in my life – much of it unexpected and traumatic – I want to reconfigure how we consider changes in ourselves, in society, in the environment.  I envision patriarchy yielding to the inclusive; and commerce partnering with nature – a rediscovered reverence for the beauty of the world.  Naively optimistic –  possibly. Hopeful – why not?

My scar works attest to the beauty of life with all its physical and mental pain.

Culturally death masks enable transition – these works imbued with natural elements urge reflorescence, rebirth and re-examination of what it means to be alive.

On a recent trip to Europe I became obsessed with coats of arms – symbols of male power and dominance – and have sought to feminise these and introduce the organic.

In a similar vein, I have transformed crisp business shirts that usually symbolise uniformity and compliance into hybrids overgrown with vegetation, showing a new way to flourish outside traditional confines.

My Scrolls emerged from museum visits in China – I didn’t know the meaning of the words on these scrolls, but I did understand their beauty. We may not always understand change, but we can go with it and find the joy in it.

– Alex Bray, 2024