An Aqueous State

I am a young and aspiring artist that is looking to break my own limitation; slowly putting my work out there so that someone might enjoy it. Typically, I like to use a pen and paper, with just a few hints of colour to give them a bit of life and depth. Most of my pieces come from chaos, translated as to how I feel at the time.

These pieces are a selection of works over the past 10 years, that somehow find something in common with each other. I invite you to give these a look and get lost in the details and spaces, creating your story or interpretation of them.

Ricardo: Photographer, who started riding the waves at the age of 13 and photographing the ocean at 16. He was born in Lisbon and lives in Paço de Arcos, having one foot on the tide line and the other in the city. During the last three decades he has travelled the world in search of the best waves, but he continues to consider the magnificent Portuguese coast – Praia de Norte in particular- his studio of choice. Being fifty now, he retains a passion for gliding through the ocean, and for being photographically curious for the (im)possibilities that the birth of each wave represents or might bring.

He says … ‘at the end of the day , it’s not really the camera equipment, the photographic skills, the tide, the wind, or the size of the swell that makes things happen, but what each and every wave becomes at any given moment, and how you’ll react to that unique event. Mother Nature is one of the purest dynamic forms, and I am just a spectator looking through this tiny window of my camera, trying to keep up with the pulses of the ocean.

Filipa is currently dedicated to working with polymer clay, a material she uses as a starting point for an ongoing exploration of form, color, and texture. In her day-to-day practice, she works primarily with polymer clay, creating earrings and accessories as her main professional focus. Curious by nature, she approaches the creative process as a space for experimentation, learning, and continual self-challenge, driven by a restless mind and a strong artistic sensitivity.

Engaged with materiality and process, she moves beyond traditional techniques, constantly seeking new approaches and exploring the expressive potential of each material. Reuse and an awareness of resources are also integral to her practice. Through her work, she aims to combine aesthetic sensitivity with conceptual reflection, creating dialogues between the organic and the symbolic, and shaping visual and sensory experiences that invite contemplation and interpretation.

In the work An Aqueous State – We Are All Bodies of Water, Filipa investigates water as a state of permanent transformation—fluid, fragmented, accumulated, and contained. Through the application of various techniques in polymer clay, she explores different states of water, not only physical but also symbolic and emotional. The golden accents emerge as a metaphor for the politics surrounding water, its scarcity, and the territorial conflicts that arise from it, establishing a contrast with the organic forms and chromatic qualities of the pieces. This project also represents a deliberate departure from familiar processes, challenging the material, and Filipa, to articulate new languages and meanings.

For me, pottery is not just art; it’s life and soul, it’s an amalgamation of earth, water, air and fire. I know when I make a piece, I am in a dance with these elements, and I when I take the finished items out the kiln, I hold in my hands the consequence of an unpredictable union of art, science, chance and chaos.

These small espresso cups and bowls seem to make themselves, my hands bringing into the world something that already seems to exist in another dimension. They look tough, but they are a little bit fragile, they need care to survive, just like us. At some level we are all like a pieces of pottery, glittering, pretty, oddly shaped and interesting or scary-looking. Treat a piece well and it will thrive, knock it about and it can shatter, slowly, bit by bit, or completely, in one thoughtless moment.

For this exhibition, my pieces are nesting inside an antique wooden cabinet, almost as if they are underwater or in a cave. Literally.

When I glaze my pieces I feel a surge of extreme anxiety, I worry that the pieces themselves will not like the final outcome, as glazing is exceptionally unpredictable for an armchair scientist like myself. So each cup looks like it’s related to the other cups, but none are identical. But each one is interesting and unique.

Philippa Mollet is a self-taught artist working across ceramics, painting, and artist’s books at her atelier in Oeiras, Portugal. Her work is informed by somatic psychotherapy, movement, and a commitment to authentic expression. Her training is purpose-driven and developed with national and international artists and institutions. She has participated in several collective exhibitions since 2019 and is consistently shortlisted for major contemporary ceramics exhibitions in Portugal. She is represented in private collections at home and abroad, as well as in the Museu de S. Vicente de Fora, Lisbon

Philippa’s lyrical abstract works are rooted in a dialogue with nature. Her works open onto intimate, imaginary worlds; poised between memory and fantasy, they explore our relationship with time, where past and future unfold at the same time. Guided by internal impulse, she creates layered, tactile movements and marks on recycled surfaces. In her monoprints paintings, beyond light, she uses gold leaf as a representation of the intrinsic value of each memory or imagined future. Each piece is an invitation to intimacy and connection to a fragile moment of reflection.

Michele is a multi-disciplinary artist (UK, and International) with her work in many collections in the UK and USA, mainly working in painting, drawing, sound, film and installation. She is deeply engaged with natural environments, using different strategies and approaches, such as walking, wading and deep looking, as methods for encounters to take place.

She always works from visual memory and in this way she (re)experiences the landscapes, urbanscapes and seascapes through recording her responses in studio, and so in this way explores the fragility of memory. Perhaps this is to try to understand our impacts in this fast- transforming world, as understanding one’s place seems ever more urgent, and she does this through pursuing empathetic relations to our environment, in the truest sense of the word by being humble- as in to know one’s place in the world.

The works in this show explore this commitment: taking walks along the beach, paddling in the cold waters of the Atlantic, really watching the sea, and then in studio, decanting these visual memories onto canvas, wood and in sketches.