"There is always an excitement of working with intention while creating something unknown to me…. I can only fully realise and understand the outcome on completion."
Janet Lines investigates the unknown, and the emotions that this precarious state brings into being. Her sculptures are thoughts and feelings made material. She explores the external and internal, both physically and metaphorically. Openings, the junction between space occupied and contained, are reminiscent of mouths, entrances to narrow passageways or cavernous interiors. Using metaphors of sticks, bundles, and sacks-familiar objects in abstract form, these pieces articulate the fragile and vulnerable state of displacement, dis-belonging, and of being confronted by the Unknown.
Her processes are simple. Sculptures coiled from ribbons of clay, marks of making left evident. She accentuates the beauty of material and making by rubbing glazes into the clay or using terra sigillata -a slip of fine clay particles that coats surfaces with glossy texture. She fires at both stoneware and low temperatures and often smoke fires- burying vessels in sand, letting the smoke darken the exposed rims or interiors. Working in series, incremental changes allow one form to beget another- it is a slow metamorphosis.
Previously design-orientated, Janet's methods and research focus changed upon returning to undertake an MA in Ceramics at University for the Creative Arts, Farnham. With new reflections on why making matters and the power objects possess to convey narrative, she graduated with Distinction in 2020. She is currently based in Athens, Greece.