Ceramic Sculpture

Gillian Probert is a multimedia artist who finds that each medium fuels her artistic inspiration in new ways. While she was first drawn to the narrative offered by illustration, she fell in love with ceramics unexpectedly during a sculpture course in college that granted her studio access. She took to handbuilding quickly, unafraid to attempt large, abstract forms. Over time, Gillian even developed her own technique—a cross between coil and slab building—using large slabs as coils for her bigger works. She finds working with ceramics to be deeply grounding. In college, she began mixing her own clay, combining soils, sand, and slop into a malleable form of earth. The process felt poetic to her, a dialogue between the raw material and her own hands. She connects with the clay, feeling its weight and warmth respond to her direction. This is a different kind of creation than painting, which allows her mind to drift beyond this plane of existence, or glass sculpture, which is intense and demanding. Ceramics are calm and slow; they keep her anchored in the present moment, reminding her that art can be both an act of making and an act of being.