Chippenham Museum: Subversive Forms: Revolutionary approaches to clay

Subversive Forms: Revolutionary approaches to clay

14 Nov 2025 to 21 Feb 2026 at Chippenham Museum

Featuring artworks by some of the leading sculptors and innovators working with ceramics in the UK today, Subversive Forms shines a spotlight on contemporary artists who push the boundaries of possibility with clay.

Each selected artist disrupts and manipulates traditional ceramic perception, creating enigmatic artworks which challenge the preconceived understanding of contemporary ceramic practice.

The exhibition is a celebration of the dichotomy between the making process and the final fired ceramic form. The works included highlight clay’s ability to serve artists as a material demanding precisely executed control and as a medium for communicating gestural emotional responses.

The works included lead the visitor on a journey between carved naked stoneware to highly glazed porcelain, between pops of incredible colour, to works of mixed media.

The unifying link between all exhibiting artists is their ability to work beyond the constraints of expectation, with incredible individual approaches pushing the medium beyond the functional, using clay as a non-apologetic material for sculpture.

Drawing upon Chippenham Museums Modern and Contemporary Art Collection, Melissa Barnett Head of Services at Chippenham Museum says:

‘This exhibition of astonishing ceramic sculpture allows the museum to continue welcoming visitors to view pieces held in our Modern and Contemporary Art Collection and creates further understandings of the significance of the work we hold on both a local and national level.’

Sarah Purvey the exhibition curator explains:

‘This fascinating exhibition of fired clay artworks further expands the dialogue between ceramic expectation and contemporary ceramic practice. Each of the exhibiting artists subverts the traditionally understood rules regarding ceramic process and pushes forward with groundbreaking technique and masterly understanding of the medium.’

Artists in the exhibition include Dan Allen, Felicity Aylieff, Kelly Allsopp, Halima Cassell, Matthew Chambers, Claire Curneen, Richard Deacon, Laura Ford, Keith Harrison, Mimi Joung, Jonathan Keep, Nicholas Lees, Claire Loder, Sam Lucas, Peter Randall Page, Sarah Purvey, Matt Smith, Jo Taylor, Annie Turner, Patricia Volk, Maria Wodjat.

More information HERE.