Emilie Taylor’s ceramics have a traditional English allure that contrasts bravely with contemporary engraved scenes of figures in post-industrial landscapes, typical for British towns. Taylor uses heritage craft processes, in particular traditional slipware, to explore and interpret these environments and their inhabitants. Her work with local communities often informs her practice.
For a commissioned exhibition, Taylor has created a body of work called Edgelands, referring to ‘people who are existing in gaps’. The stories told are multi-layered, addressing subjects such as coming of age, fertility, exploitation and the hardships of a less privileged environment. They draw on Taylor’s observations from her past and present life, and have been translated into two different strands of pots. One strand references youth, or ‘the daughter’, the other suggests early maturity, ‘the mother’. The women in the portrayed scenes are inspired by poetry and classical mythology, continuous undercurrents in Taylor’s oeuvre. The girls reference Persephone, a Greek goddess associated with fertility, while the maternal figures allude to Demeter, goddess of the harvest and Persephone’s mother.
Fields of Gold (2016) belongs to the strand of work featuring the Persephonic girls. The scenes echo Taylor’s teenage memories, when she used to hang out in a Sheffield park with friends, dressed in leggings, vests and trainers. The depicted girls are in similar dress, hanging on monkey bars in a playground or running around with arms spread out, as if they are flying. Fields of Gold displays a scene that does not capture one moment in time, but rather several moments like consecutive slides of a filmstrip melding into one panorama. The filmstrip quality may suggest motion, progress perhaps. The girls are at the edgelands of childhood, full of dreams and expectations in spite of little prospect for the future. The work’s colour scheme enhances the sense of youth: it is executed in lemon and yolk-orange, with planes of gold lustre, and the girls appear sun-drenched.
Fields of Gold, a combination of traditional technique, contemporary subject matter and classic storytelling, relates closely to several elements of the Williamson Art Gallery’s collections and also resonates on a local level. Taylor uses the ancient sgraffito technique, which was the principal means of decoration for the Della Robbia Pottery, Birkenhead’s contribution to the Arts & Crafts movement. The inclusion in her work of decorative scrolling flower patterns around the neck of each vase links to the patterns of William Morris. The fact that Taylor was a student in Liverpool also provides a direct local connection.
