Elizabeth Raeburn (born 1943) trained at Harrow, and then briefly with David Leach. In 1975 she set up a workshop in Somerset with Rodney Lawrence, making domestic stoneware and hand-built forms, and then, since 1981, individual hand-built raku, often cut and altered. This work ranges from abstractly decorated footed cups to stemmed flared vessels, wall plaques and ambitiously decorated murals and free-standing tiles.
Raeburn has a considerable and virtuoso command of the raku process, much of her ‘illustrated' work essentially about painting with ceramic, but her best pieces are often her simplest, for example her winged or ‘diamond’ forms or her small anthropomorphic bottles, full of life, vigour and personality, and a particular pleasure to handle.
David Whiting |
