Bum vases and breast mugs: Meet 8 artists celebrating the female form in ceramics
Celebrating every freckle, mole, roll and fold
What better muse for an artist than the female form, an endless pool of inspiration that’s diverse in shape, form, colour and size. But why do we need to drink our filter coffee out of a glazed 32-C cup, you might ask? Because for too long, the female form has been viewed through a patriarchal lens.
For centuries and across cultures, women were stripped of agency over their own physical beings, both in ritual and law.
The system uses the female body as a marketing tool while simultaneously telling women to be ashamed of theirs. Its place in pop culture, reduced to binaries: pleasure (not our own, of course) and procreation.
“A lot of art was made for men by men, and the female figures have been idealized. They’re submissive and anonymous,” says artist Allison Zuckerman.
So the rebellion begins, as most do, with art. Through their work, these female artists are normalising the view of our own bodies and embracing every fold, roll, dimple and pimple.
Add these to your decor collection and Instagram feed for a daily dose of creativity and to offer a proverbial middle finger to anyone who tries to police your body.
Artists celebrating the female form in ceramics
Anissa Kermiche started off studying engineering and computer science, but the London-based designer is best known for her living art: jewellery, sculptures and decor inspired by “the generation of successful, powerful and funny women” she sees around her.
Her Love Handles vase became a viral sensation after they sneaked into the Instagram accounts of top fashion designers and social media influencers. Luxury retailer MatchesFashion has noted that the derrière extraordinaire is one of their bestsellers. And to think when she first showed her Body Language line to manufacturers, “naked body parts, pubis, boobs – they laughed at me. They said it would never sell.”
We’d love a pair of her Tit for Tat candlesticks or salt and pepper shakers to add to our collections too. Kermiche has been a favourite her creative thinking and representation of the female form.
Slow Pottery
The Bengaluru-based pottery studio Slow Pottery has a healthy fascination for breasts, and their customers couldn’t be more delighted.
Their Boob Basics collection feature mugs, tumblers and vases that give cup sizes a whole new meaning. Founder Nikita Dawar started the Boob series as a project in March and wanted to recreate the female form using art as an object we’d be interacting with on a daily basis.
“I’m enjoying creating the curves, the natural droop, the tummy being a part of them,” as she puts it. Before they knew it, the mugs started flying off the shelf and instantly selling out.
We love their cheeky take on jugs…er.. mugs, a delightful addition to your homeware collection (if you can manage to get your hands on one).
Hanna Englund
Ceramic artist Hanna Englund’s Ceramic Nude series is her ode to women around the world. Every piece in the series is handmade by Englund.
Serving as tumblers, cups, vases and planters, the series features torsos of different sizes, colours and undertones to “embrace the diversity of female bodies.” I wanted to create unique nudes that feels inclusive for everyone, regardless of their shape, size or skin tone,” she says.
She seems to have hit a note with her audience considering the pieces from the series are pretty much always sold out and constant requests for restocking filling up the comments section on her social media page. Perhaps we are truly becoming more open-minded?
Alice Lang
A lot of Alice Lang’s works focus on cutting through the noise to reclaim a space for female voices.
One of these creations is a scaled-down 3d scan of the artist’s body which she then hand-paints to replicate her every freckle, mole and scar.
The anatomically correct replicas of the artist’s body are made to order by Lang and can be used as mugs, holders, but always conversation starters.
Lyla FreeChild
Few Indian artists have explored the female form in all its natural wonder quite like Lyla FreeChild. She made paintings with her menstrual blood, used menstrual cups to create installation art, even turning them into earrings to raise awareness about sanitary waste.
Through blue pottery tiles, paintings and more, she has depicted the raw beauty of the natural human body and everything that comes with it – blood, boobs and more.
Her feed is dotted with artworks and posts where she has opened up about her own experience with her body image, mental health and struggles showcasing a vulnerability that has connected her with people around the world.
In December 2019, along with another artist, she started an artist’s collective called the Cunteshwari Collective as a space for other artworks exclusively around the female body and its processes.
Rachel Saunders
It’s hard to pick our favourite from Rachel Saunders’ minimalist collection but it would have to be the one she is also most known for.
Her iconic Woman Vase figure is far from the ‘ideal body’ we’ve been fed for years.
Simple and clean in its aesthetic, it’s a real woman’s body. A natural woman you would sit next to on a bus or stand behind in line at the grocery store. There are no perky breasts, narrow waistline and peach-shaped bottoms that we’re usually flooded with.
The candle version of her figurine is made of beeswax and soy wax with the gentle scents of neroli and jasmine. In a special collaboration with Fiona Morrison, founder of Wolf Circus, it was also turned into a pendant.
Meegan Barnes
Scroll through Meegan Barnes’ work and you’ll see a lot of behinds. Brown bums, thong-wearing bums, badass bums and round bums.
A bum was the first thing Barnes made when she took up ceramics and not much has changed since then. Bums were having their pop culture moment with the Kardashian-Jenners, but social media also pushed the body-positivity movement ahead as more women became comfortable in their skin and made this digital space as their own.
Barnes reclaimed the overly sexualised female form from the male gaze and given it back with a playful and empowering punch. “My work is feminine and feminist, it’s got grit and it’s got glamour,” writes the artist.
Anne-Fleur Kan
Every piece from Anne-Fleur Kan’s body of work celebrates the female body. You’ll see an array of vulvas, breasts and nipples of different shapes and sizes.
There’s every kind of breast in her collection. The thin long ones, the small ones, the uneven ones too. She says that this theme in her crafting was a way of working through her recovery from an eating disorder and coming to accept her own body.
The strength and sturdiness of the material are met with the softness of the body that it depicts. Seeing this one piece of human-inspired art as part of our everyday life makes different kinds of bodies, breasts and bikini lines part of ordinary conversations.