Artist Profile

Cheryl Lucas

Ceramic artist Cheryl Lucas creates vessels that tell stories through their shape and surface adornment.  Exploring the interplay of form and function, Lucas enjoys vessels where the form belies the ostensible function - such as a porous jug.  Initially trained in graphics, Lucas uses the vessel's surface as a support for drawing or painting, often creating visual illusions that further induce the viewer to look again.

“Clay is both a surface and a form; two and three dimensional. For me, it is the ideal material to convey ideas through the shape of the form and the surface imagery. In doing this the disciplines of both fine and applied art merge into one. I make clay forms, usually based on the vessel shape, then draw, paint or print the surface which is then glazed and high fired. These forms and their imagery generally reflect or comment on aspects of our social and environmental existence with reference also to our ceramic and painting traditions.” These are the observations of artist Cheryl Lucas, who majored in graphics at the Otago Polytechnic School of Art in Dunedin in 1975 and in 1978 completed a Certificate in Advanced Printmaking (Lithography) at the Wimbledon College of Art in London.