In the Making was a solo exhibition surveying 50 years of work by Jacqueline Poncelet. Poncelet’s work is characterised by a restless exploration of materials and making that is evident throughout her practice. As an artist she is fascinated by how tastes and fashions play out in the ways that humans dress, decorate living spaces, shape architecture and build infrastructures. Working across diverse media, Poncelet gathers and transforms patterns found in our cityscapes and rural landscapes.
Having trained in ceramics and working with clay for over ten years, Poncelet moved into making sculpture, painting and textiles before turning her attention to public commissions. Poncelet now works across a range of scales and media and this exhibition presents a rare opportunity to experience the breadth of her work. It includes tiny, delicate ceramics made in the 1970s, large, brightly coloured paintings and textiles from the 1990s, as well as watercolours and wallpapers made specifically for this exhibition.
Taking a thematic rather than chronological approach, In the Making presents works from different eras side by side, offering experiences of the artist’s inquiry and rigorous exploration of process across diverse bodies of work. The first gallery presents Poncelet’s early bone china pieces alongside a large, contemporary patterned wallpaper. Moving through the galleries, the exhibition’s final presentation juxtaposes a series of anguished, tense-looking figurative ceramic sculptures made in the 1980s, with a group of Poncelet’s latest large-scale watercolours. These abstracted landscapes are informed by her time spent living in South Wales.
This exhibition is Poncelet’s largest and most ambitious to date. In the Making was awarded the prestigious Freelands Award, established by the Freelands Foundation in 2016, which recognises the work of a female artist who has not yet received the acclaim that their work deserves.
