Felicity Aylieff: Expressions in Blue at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

5 April - 14 September 2025
The Weston Gallery and Outdoors

Expressions in Blue is a solo exhibition of monumental sculptural works in porcelain, painted in tones of rich cobalt blue oxide using expressive brushstrokes full of movement. These hand-thrown ceramic vessels and stacked monoliths stand up to an impressive five-metres high and have a powerful sculptural presence. Shown together in The Weston Gallery and outdoors, the organic energy of their surfaces and their forest-like presentation will resonate with the forms and rhythms of the 18th-century landscape beyond.

Felicity Aylieff says: “Exhibiting my monumental porcelain vessels at Yorkshire Sculpture Park is an incredible opportunity. I am excited to see them come alive against the rich backdrop of rolling countryside in one of the best places to show sculpture in Britain.”

Alongside seven vast porcelain works and a range of smaller pieces in the gallery, and two towering obelisks outdoors, visitors will see photographs and a film that reveal the remarkable making process and its physicality. Also on display will be a selection from Aylieff’s extensive range of fascinating mark-making tools, including giant horsehair brushes used to whip around the vessels and create energetic flicks and splashes.

Sarah Coulson, YSP Senior Curator, says: “Being surrounded by Aylieff’s imposing ceramic vessels is an invigorating and moving experience. Their scale and technical ingenuity are breathtaking, and you get lost in the richness and vitality of their surfaces. The artist’s mark-making echoes the energy of the natural world, and her practice expands our understanding of the sculptural potential of ceramics, making the work feel perfectly placed at YSP.”

Painting the vessels is a spontaneous, performative act that engages the artist’s whole body and brings energy to their surfaces, which she sees as canvasses for her artistic expression. In monochromatic shades of grey when applied, the cobalt oxides transform in the kiln into deep and vibrant blues. Aylieff was drawn to cobalt not only for its luminosity but for its significance in the history of Chinese ceramics. Using the classic blue and white of Chinese porcelain, she synthesises old and new, a reinterpretation that she describes as ‘new Ming’.

Works such as Blue: Triple Form (2023) are painted with large brushes in bold and fluid swathes, built up layer on layer to give depth, with bold gestural marks bringing movement across the form. Others, including Blue: Earth, Fire, Water, Undulating Form I (2024), have smaller, more frenetic surface marks created using improvised brushes made from bunches of bale twine. Brought together across different forms and vessels, these contrasting strokes evoke changing tempos through the exhibition.

Aylieff’s journey towards working at this unprecedented scale began with a visit to China in 2005 when she became captivated by the city of Jingdezhen, known for centuries for its high-quality porcelain production. Over the subsequent two decades, she has spent long periods living and working there each year, developing close working relationships with specialist craftspeople who have accumulated knowledge over generations. Through an enduring process of creative collaboration with them, Aylieff has forged an ambitious and experimental path combining tradition with innovation across cultures. This has enabled her to push the limits of her work in a notoriously challenging material.

Before their physical making, the monumental pieces on display in Expressions in Blue started life as detailed digital drawings. This is a necessarily precise process and a way to counteract some of the risk and uncertainty involved in the production of large-scale ceramics. Then, using a giant potter’s wheel, a highly skilled team of three or more throwers work together to centre and open up the clay. They brace each other’s arms and bodies, using combined physical strength and harmony of movement to raise the wall of the clay upwards to create Aylieff’s characteristic forms. These range from more conventional vase or jar-like shapes to contemporary organic and undulating stacks.

Aylieff has produced a ceramic beaker featuring her distinctive cobalt surface decoration in a limited edition of 100 especially for YSP. Each cup is individually hand thrown in porcelain, glazed and painted by the artist in tones of cobalt blue oxide. Created in Jingdezhen, China, 2025.

Priced at £75 it represents a wonderful opportunity to own the artist’s work. YSP is a registered charity and accredited museum, all proceeds from sales help to share incredible art and continue to create meaningful experiences for everyone in a unique environment.

Expressions in Blue has been made possible through support and collaboration with Adrian Sassoon, London, who represent the artist internationally.

The exhibition was first shown in expanded form at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Laura Ellen Bacon: Into Being
5 April - 7 September 2025
The Chapel

Into Being is a new exhibition by Derbyshire-based artist Laura Ellen Bacon. Designed for the 18th-century Chapel in the grounds of YSP, this new sculpture is woven in sustainable Somerset willow and responds to the building’s architecture, with its dense and abstract form growing within and around the features of the space.

Seeming to take hold of the room, Into Being encroaches six metres into the nave of the Chapel and climbs three metres up the wall. It embodies forms found in the natural world such as cocoons, burrows and seed pods, and visitors can stand within its embracing folds surrounded by the intricate and powerful details of the structure.

Bacon primarily works alone and is constructing the sculpture from scratch at YSP over eight weeks, using willow to “draw” into the surrounding space. She is using branches from fallen beech trees at YSP to form part of the skeleton of the self-supporting structure that, through its material and form, conjures up a primal instinct to nest and reconnect with the natural world.

The ancient technique of willow weaving can be traced back 10,000 years, and today Bacon employs a non-traditional style of working that she has developed over 20 years to create contemporary, abstract installations. She becomes absorbed in the making process, leaving traces of memory and experience within the work, held within the interwoven and knotted rods. For Bacon, the act of making is a contemplative process, with its repetitive and physical nature providing a welcome sanctuary. Her works celebrate the joy of manipulating raw materials by hand, without the need for complex machinery or large teams of people.

For this YSP display, Bacon will use around 80 bundles of Somerset willow called Dicky Meadows, chosen for its particularly slender and straight stem, which helps her ‘draw’ strong and smooth lines in the space. Native to the UK, willow is a sustainable material that exists in harmony with the natural world. At the end of the exhibition, the sculpture will be dismantled and the material reused in the landscape to create wildlife habitats. Alongside her strong affiliation with organic growth, Bacon is also inspired by her father’s architectural drawings, introducing the energy and unpredictability of natural environments into interior spaces with careful consideration.

Bacon explained: “Making it on site was a dream. I was able to work with the rising and falling light in the space, both of which inform the flow of the inner folds of weave. Also, I could witness the acoustics of the space change when I’m deep in the woven willow folds.

It will be a sensory experience in that there is so much willow, and it has a beautiful aroma and the light from the Chapel windows will affect and change the work throughout the day. The sculpture itself is big! I think that visitors will be able to explore the many varied views of it in the space as it folds, pools and curls its way across the stone floor.”

The exhibition’s title refers to the intense and durational process of bringing a new work into existence. Responding to the specific space, Bacon imagines the shape a new work could take and creates preliminary sketches, but the precise form evolves organically and instinctively as it is made. More so than in her previous works, Into Being suggests a connection to a living thing – a being. The commanding presence and strange but familiar contours of Into Being, along with its subtle aroma will create a stunning and compelling sensory experience.

Shown alongside the new commission will be smaller works in the vestry and on the balcony, including a wall-based sculpture Contact (2021), made from stripped willow, and the floor-based Companion (2024).

Bacon has exhibited widely in Europe and created many significant installations, including at Chatsworth, The Holburne Museum, University of Warwick, Château-Gaillard and Maubuisson.

Abbey in France. 2024 saw her first USA exhibit at Denver Art Museum, Colorado and this year Bacon will aslo exhibit at The Clark Institute in Massachusetts.

The exhibition supported by Hignell Gallery.