Priscilla Mouritzen

Born and educated in South Africa, Priscilla Mouritzen established a ceramic studio in the UK in the 1960s and since 1981 has been based in Denmark. She has an international reputation for her pinched wood fired and black and white “graphic” porcelain work and is regularly invited to present and participate in symposia worldwide.She says of her work:

The technique I use is simple: pinching a porcelain clay body, applying slips for colour. I enjoy exploring the feelings of intimacy and expressiveness that the small scale and the slight unevenness of the pinched surface gives.

I return from time to time to working on a large scale, usually with terracotta clay and again using hand-building techniques.

All the pinched bowls I make are the same size: hand-sized – as deep and as wide as the reach of thumb and fingers allow in the pinching process.

While I usually wood fire my work, I have always made black and white “graphic” porcelain alongside the wood fired work – culminating in an exhibition entitled “1000 bowls” in Galerie Besson in London in 1998.

The bowls are decorated according to a simple dogma rule: the pattern on the inside must also be carried over to the outside surface. The difference between the way the pattern reacts to being placed on a concave or a convex surface is the challenge.

Priscilla Mouritzen’s website