Eileen Nisbet (1929-1990) was always a very linear artist, her individual early dishes harnessed by geometric or curvilinear incising that showed her interest in the abstract qualities of ceramics. Nisbet studied at Hornsey College of Art and at the Central School during its artistically most productive period, at the beginning of the 1960s. The surface drawing broadened out into contours of the form itself as the work evolved into pure sculpture in the following decade.

In 1975 she converted to porcelain and began to experiment with flat planar work, cut and assembled sections of translucent clay that she treated like paper, with surfaces sensitively painted and drawn over, perhaps pierced through and punctuated by smaller additions or attachments.. The work was technically and visually bravura and complex, following many channels of enquiry, with varied areas of sensitive marking and incident contained within each piece. Crisp and ethereal and seen at its best when glowing with light, her ceramics resist easy description, a sure sign of quality.

David Whiting