Sarah Mayhew Craddock on a new show by ceramicist Mo Jupp

Mo Jupp is renowned for moulding clay into slender and elongated human figures, pared back to their very essence. During a career that spans some 50 years, he has developed an unmistakably idiosyncratic style – as can be seen in a new body of work at Oxford Ceramics Gallery in Jericho, which opens on Saturday.

Born in South London in 1938, he followed up his National Service by studying sculpture at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts, immediately becoming excited by the possibilities of clay.

The female form is a subject that has intrigued and engaged Jupp throughout his life as an artist. It was while studying at Camberwell that Jupp encountered archaic figurative forms, such as the Cycladic figurines admired by his tutor Hans Coper, and ancient Cypriot statuettes in London’s museums, echoes of which can still be seen in his work to this day.

Jupp says: “As a male I have always been interested in females and the way that they are presented historically. One day I had a run-in with some local lads about how young men see females and I made an exhibition to try to describe to them and show them how they behave… they can be crude. My aim is to be able to make a figure as powerful as the Cycladic Form. One that looks as important.”

The director of Oxford Ceramics Gallery, James Fordham, said: “We’re delighted to be staging this exhibition of Mo Jupp’s most recent work, which focuses on female figures – the majority small, almost like maquettes, with a few larger pieces. Mo has always been fascinated by the female form, and the expressive power of different postures, which he captures in clay with enormous skill, economy and apparent ease. He continues to observe the world about him keenly, and to explore the endless possibilities of clay.”

It is perhaps impossible to be a ceramicist and not to be transfixed by the properties of clay. Certainly in Jupp’s case, his work is also a celebration of his medium – the way it folds, cracks or slumps.

The joins between the different sections of Jupp’s hand-built forms are not concealed, but emphasised by the use of white slip on a terracotta or black clay body.

All of the works in this exhibition are immensely tactile and delight through their simplicity owing, in part, to not having been overworked and serving as an affirmation of Jupp’s continuing passion for both his subject and his medium.

Unafraid to experiment and find techniques that work for him, his sculptures are hand-built and constructed from sections.

Some of his techniques have been inspired by industry, others by domestic life (his mother was a seamstress and Jupp has adopted the technique of using darts and adding panels of clay as if they were fabric).

He uses wet and dry and furniture polish to achieve his desired rich, lustrous finish, and has devised a simple system for creating his figures that involves pushing dowelling through clay.

The figures that Jupp depicts appear natural, poised, laid bare yet strong, with a power that could be likened to the fine art equivalent of the Desmond Morris’ book Manwatching.

Jupp says: “I have tried to be true to my vision of ceramics as an art form. I make with intention, to make clear an idea.”

This exhibition of new work by Mo Jupp is more than a simple ceramics exhibition, it is a fascinating catalogue of human behaviour modelled in clay.

Where and when
Mo Jupp: New Work opens at Oxford Ceramics Gallery, Walton Street, on Saturday and continues until March 5
oxfordceramics.com