Grete McNorton was recently nominated Winner of the ‘Prix Avenir Ceramic 2025’
organised by the ‘Réseau des Centres Céramiques’, France.
For over twenty years, Grete McNorton has co-directed the drawing research centre
DRAWinternational in Caylus, cultivating a contemporary space dedicated to artistic
exchange and experimentation.
In 2023, she initiated a decisive shift in her own practice, moving away from polluting
materials such as fibreglass and resin in favour of porcelain — a medium whose
unexpected versatility opened new formal and conceptual possibilities.
Working at the intersection of porcelain, textile, and drawing, Grete interrogates the
construction of volume and the status of the domestic object. Her approach resonates
with the legacy of artists such as Eva Hesse and Tony Cragg, while also engaging with
the critical questions that shaped the emergence of sculptural ceramics between the
1990s and 2010s: the role of accident inherent in firing processes, the politics of
recycling, and the persistence of functional memory embedded in objects.
Her sculptures are marked by manganese oxide washes and graphite lines, partially
erased, leaving behind traces of gesture and time. Burnt textiles, once soft and intimate,
imprint their folds, patterns and textures onto porcelain surfaces, while fragments -
inspired by elements unearthed from her garden — become embedded vestiges. Each
work bears the scars of its making: folds, fractures, residues, and absences that testify to
transformation rather than conceal it.
By incorporating beloved but discarded garments from her own wardrobe, Grete
situates her practice within a lineage of women artists who have combined ceramics
and textiles to address intimacy, domestic labour, and gendered histories of making.
With subtle humour, she reclaims and reconfigures the notion of “women’s work,”
transforming acts of care and repair into gestures of resistance and authorship.
In Grete’s practice, porcelain becomes both skin and archive, recording the
disappearance of fabric while preserving its memory. Her sculptures inhabit a space
between fragility and endurance, where the domestic meets the archaeological, and
where material bears witness to lived experience.
From the text by Stéphanie le Follic- Haddida, C14 Paris.
