Artist Spotlight: Francis Marr

10 Sept

**Frances Marr**
*Vessel*, 2023
Hand built ceramic with coloured slip, burnished and smoke fired
32.5 x 28 x 26 cm
12 ¾ x 11 x 10 ¼ in.

We have assembled an interesting group of Frances Marr's recent pots in our Stable Gallery and Artist's House.

Marr uses various different materials and techniques to produce such unique sculptures. She slowly hand builds each piece, allowing her time to change the direction of the work. She fires the works twice, first to 1000°c, followed by barrel firing with sawdust and found organic material from the surrounding environment.

Marr's ceramics are unglazed, she uses slips to add colour and stones to burnish the clay as it dries to achieve an incredibly smooth surface. The smoke from burning organic material creates the beautiful, unpredictable carbon marks on the surface of her sculptures. These shadows reflect the influence of the mist and dramatic dark skies of the UK coasts and Cumbrian landscape. Some of Marr's work contains stones either in the surface or within it's cavity, resulting from her magpie tendency to collect rocks and stones.

**Frances Marr**
*Precarious III*, 2023
Closed form, hand built using the coiling method with blue slip and burnished. Fired to 980 degrees c, then smoke fired using organic material.
38 x 30 x 27 cm
15 x 11 ¾ x 10 ⅝ in.

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Frances Marr grew up near the sea on the Isle of Wight but is now based in Wiltshire. She started making ceramics in 2005 and has exhibited widely across the UK since, including at the Contemporary Ceramics Fair at the Hepworth Wakefield (2019), at the Florence Arts Centre, Cumbria (2020), in Precarious at the RSPB Gallery, Geltsdale Nature Reserve, Cumbria (2023), at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens with the Hampshire and Berkshire Guild of Craftsmen (2024) and more recently in Resonance - Marks of Memory, Person and Place at Oxmarket Contemporary, Chichester (2025).