Dame Magdalene Odundo is rightly celebrated as one of the most important artists working today. Having participated at this year’s Venice Biennale, she has consistently sought new challenges and forged forward in representing a dialogue that ties together the ideas of art, craft, and humanity. For over forty years Odundo has continued to explore the sculptural versatility of clay through her unique and alluring ceramic forms. Graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1982, the Kenyan-born artist was met with a wave of support for her hand built (as opposed to wheel-thrown) vessels. Whilst studying at Farnham she visited the potter Michael Cardew (the first apprentice to Bernard Leach), who helped to facilitate a two-month residency at the Abuja pottery in Nigeria. There she watched the female makers – including most famously Ladi Kwali – coil build large water-jar forms that celebrated their local heritage. It was a turning point for Odundo, and one can see the origins of the water jar form in much of her work, with a rounded body or belly that meets the ground (as opposed to any sort of raised foot or base).

Form and surface are of equal importance to Odundo, and her terracotta bodies are sprayed with a thin layer of terra sigillata (slip made from the same clay as the vessel itself) before burning and firing in a gas kiln. To achieve the intensity of the blackened surfaces of many of her most recognisable works the pieces are then fired again in a saggar and reduction fired, often several times, to create an almost lustrous surface. Her forms are organic, often anthropomorphic, but always link back to the idea of a vessel. As she recalled in 2019:

‘What is so beautiful about the pot is that it conveys a universal language, that of spiritual utility and aesthetic. It is revered and understood by all and therefore important to all … What else can tell you about human life more than a pot does?’

(Magdalene Odundo in conversation with Ben Okri, 15th February 2019, quoted in The Journey of Things exh. cat., London, 2019, N.P.)

This early work, made the year after she graduated from the Royal College, showcases the importance of the vessel form in her oeuvre, and it is this shape that would go on to form the basis of much of her later work. Subtle, understated, and elegant, it brings together so many of the influences that would continue to inspire the artist throughout her later career.