Travellers no. 3 2001

Master potter Gwyn Hanssen Pigott had a profound understanding of the aesthetic potential and historical role of ceramics. Functional, culturally significant and often decorative, pottery has been traded across great distances throughout history. In Travellers no.3, Hanssen Pigott makes reference to this complex chain of exchange, but the work also operates on a symbolic level — her still-life ‘families’ of cups, bottles and bowls appear to stand together in groups, while others drift apart — as do people throughout their lives. Here, Hanssen Pigott has finely orchestrated a combination of contours and spacing, alluding to the push and pull of human experience.