ARTIST STATEMENT

My obsession with animals and animal imagery has been more or less constant since childhood, so it is beyond doubt that they should be the dominant subject in my work. It feels right and represents the most honest creative direction available to me.

I believe that part of my drive to make animals is tied up with a primitive need to possess them — like effigies or totems.

In my sculpture, I am trying to create images that capture a kind of animal truth. Direct representation does not interest me. Instead, I strive to reinvent animal form, enhancing its essential qualities without being slavishly tied to mere appearance.

Dogs, horses, birds, pigs, sheep, and cats are all major recurring themes within my work.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Fascinated by animals from an early age, Susan Halls was born in Gillingham, Kent, in 1966.

She gained a place at her local art school, the Medway College of Design, to study studio ceramics from 1984–1988. Upon graduating, she won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London, where she spent two years in the Ceramics and Glass Department, gaining a Master of Arts degree.

Graduating with distinction, her critically acclaimed RCA show in 1990 quickly established Halls’ reputation as a significant talent and secured a prestigious six-month residency at the Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta, Canada.

With the aid of a Crafts Council grant, she established her first studio in London in 1991 and, in 1993, had her first solo exhibition at Andrew Usiskin Contemporary Art, London. By the mid-1990s, her work was included in seminal exhibitions such as The Raw and the Cooked at the Barbican Art Gallery and Colours of the Earth, a British Council touring exhibition to East Asia.

In 1998, despite establishing a leading position in the field, Halls’ artistic frustration with the status of figurative ceramics in the UK led her to leave London for the USA, eventually setting up a studio in Massachusetts. Whilst continuing to make, teach, and exhibit, she immersed herself in an intensive drawing programme to develop her understanding of anatomy and physiology, and to improve her skill as a draftswoman. It proved to have a profound effect on her work, underpinning her entire artistic practice.

After almost twenty years, and homesick for European landscapes and architecture, she decided to return home. Initially working as Potter in Residence at the University of York (2018–2019), she settled in Cornwall in 2019.

She was subsequently invited by the Ruthin Craft Centre to undertake a solo exhibition, Biting Back, with the rare honour of occupying all three of their galleries. The exhibition opened in 2024 and, that same year, she was selected for the 2025 British Ceramics Biennial Award Exhibition at Spode Works. This gave her the long-awaited opportunity to begin exploring an entirely new body of work, which is her current preoccupation.

Her work is held in collections throughout the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the The Sackler Foundation, Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, and Kecskemét International Ceramics Studio.