Author: wendycampbell-briggs

My inspiration comes from the natural world and concerns for our environment is a constant theme. Investigating the idea of collecting and collections, I create work which is not only visually engaging but conveys an environmental message. In my series Species Loss, a collection of delicate porcelain forms are hung within an oak frame, they are tagged and numbered – suggesting a ‘museum’ look. Each form is purposefully ambiguous but represents a species in serious decline or one that has already become extinct. Recent work includes Charon’s Boat - Charon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead – on this boat he is ferrying our beautiful and majestic Ash trees. In Cry No More, the work was inspired by lachrymatory bottles first used by the Ancient Romans, Greeks and Egyptians to collect the tears of mourners - a practice later adopted by the Victorians. Each bottle is labelled with a minute extract taken from estate documents circa 1840. This idea is a continuation of the theme of environmental damage and species loss, and the title is meant to convey the thought that time has run out.