ABOUT
Artist Statement
My practice is grounded in an ecocentric, place-based approach to material practice that treats earth materials not as inert resources to be extracted and processed elsewhere, but as active participants within the geological, ecological and cultural systems they are already part of. This draws on thinking around material agency and geontologies – the recognition that what counts as "living" or "inert" matter is itself a cultural and political distinction, not a neutral fact about the world. Working from a position of post-extractivism, I'm interested in what a material practice looks like when it refuses to separate matter from the systems, histories and relationships it carries within it.
This position is grounded in walking, observation, and direct, sustained engagement with a specific place. For the past three years, the Llŷn Peninsula coastline has been where geological processes, ecological systems, and vernacular knowledge are already entangled within the material conditions of place. What is gathered changes with what the land is doing: clay exposed by erosion and landslip, straw as a farming by-product, pigment specific to a particular stretch of ground.
My primary material at present is clom, a mixture of clay-rich earth and straw used in the region's vernacular architecture. Reinterpreting this traditional earth-building technique within a contemporary studio context, I make sculptural clom forms from goe-regional materials gathered responsibly after landslips or discarded as "waste" by local industries. Each piece is built by hand, does not require firing, is repairable and compostable, merging functionality, place-based design and sustainability. The resulting forms are abstract responses to landscape — cloud formations, undulating hills, tidal rhythms. Variation in colour, texture and behaviour is treated as information about a site's specific geology and ecology, not an inconsistency to be corrected.
Alongside studio work, I am increasingly interested in how this approach can extend into workshops, collaborative research, and site-based engagement with environmental organisations, exploring how material ecologies can be shared and activated beyond the studio.
My practice is grounded in an ecocentric, place-based approach to material practice that treats earth materials not as inert resources to be extracted and processed elsewhere, but as active participants within the geological, ecological and cultural systems they are already part of. This draws on thinking around material agency and geontologies – the recognition that what counts as "living" or "inert" matter is itself a cultural and political distinction, not a neutral fact about the world. Working from a position of post-extractivism, I'm interested in what a material practice looks like when it refuses to separate matter from the systems, histories and relationships it carries within it.
This position is grounded in walking, observation, and direct, sustained engagement with a specific place. For the past three years, the Llŷn Peninsula coastline has been where geological processes, ecological systems, and vernacular knowledge are already entangled within the material conditions of place. What is gathered changes with what the land is doing: clay exposed by erosion and landslip, straw as a farming by-product, pigment specific to a particular stretch of ground.
My primary material at present is clom, a mixture of clay-rich earth and straw used in the region's vernacular architecture. Reinterpreting this traditional earth-building technique within a contemporary studio context, I make sculptural clom forms from goe-regional materials gathered responsibly after landslips or discarded as "waste" by local industries. Each piece is built by hand, does not require firing, is repairable and compostable, merging functionality, place-based design and sustainability. The resulting forms are abstract responses to landscape — cloud formations, undulating hills, tidal rhythms. Variation in colour, texture and behaviour is treated as information about a site's specific geology and ecology, not an inconsistency to be corrected.
Alongside studio work, I am increasingly interested in how this approach can extend into workshops, collaborative research, and site-based engagement with environmental organisations, exploring how material ecologies can be shared and activated beyond the studio.
Artist Bio
Gabriella Rhodes (b. 1993, Stoke-on-Trent) is a visual artist and material researcher currently based on the Llŷn Peninsula, North Wales. Her practice investigates clay‐rich sediments as active collaborators in living systems, challenging anthropocentric assumptions of geological matter as inert resources. Through site‐responsive making, embodied fieldwork, and reinterpretation of vernacular earth-building techniques in contemporary craft and design contexts, she explores the entanglements of material, geology, ecology, and human histories. Her work is currently centred on clom, a traditional clay-and-straw earth-building material reinterpreted within a contemporary sculptural practice.
Rhodes graduated from the BA Craft programme at Manchester School of Art (2018) and completed the MA Regenerative Design at Central Saint Martins with Distinction (2026). She has exhibited nationally, including at London Craft Week (2024, 2025) and Artistiaid Ifainc Cymru at MOMA Machynlleth, and has undertaken residencies and received support from Guldagergaard Ceramic Research Centre (Denmark), A-B Projects (Los Angeles), and the Arts Council of Wales. Recent projects include a commission in Coed Coexist at Plas Glyn-y-Weddw and presentations at the Regenerate! Symposium (Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht) and the Making Ecologies Symposium (Victoria and Albert Museum).
Gabriella Rhodes (b. 1993, Stoke-on-Trent) is a visual artist and material researcher currently based on the Llŷn Peninsula, North Wales. Her practice investigates clay‐rich sediments as active collaborators in living systems, challenging anthropocentric assumptions of geological matter as inert resources. Through site‐responsive making, embodied fieldwork, and reinterpretation of vernacular earth-building techniques in contemporary craft and design contexts, she explores the entanglements of material, geology, ecology, and human histories. Her work is currently centred on clom, a traditional clay-and-straw earth-building material reinterpreted within a contemporary sculptural practice.
Rhodes graduated from the BA Craft programme at Manchester School of Art (2018) and completed the MA Regenerative Design at Central Saint Martins with Distinction (2026). She has exhibited nationally, including at London Craft Week (2024, 2025) and Artistiaid Ifainc Cymru at MOMA Machynlleth, and has undertaken residencies and received support from Guldagergaard Ceramic Research Centre (Denmark), A-B Projects (Los Angeles), and the Arts Council of Wales. Recent projects include a commission in Coed Coexist at Plas Glyn-y-Weddw and presentations at the Regenerate! Symposium (Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht) and the Making Ecologies Symposium (Victoria and Albert Museum).
Credit Adam GrüningCV
EDUCATION / TRAINING
2024–26 MA Regenerative Design (Distinction), Central Saint Martins
2024 Soil as Art: Elegy and Revival, Swiss Institute New York (Online)
2023 Natural Building Festival, Estonia
2022 Clay Plastering, School of Natural Building, Anglesey
2015–18 BA Three-Dimensional Design, Manchester School of Art
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS / RESIDENCIES
2026 Making Ecologies Symposium, Victoria and Albert Museum
2026 Material Connections, Aberlleiniog Sculpture Trail, Plas Bodfa, Wales – Material Researcher
2025 Where Land and Water Meet, MA Regenerative Design, LVMH Maison/0 Challenge Fund – Design Researcher
2025 Ecosystem Alliance: Biodiversity & Design Symposium, Central Saint Martins & Maison/0 – Design Researcher
2025 Regenerative Realities, MA Regenerative Design, Central Saint Martins – Design
2024 Regenerate! Symposium, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht – Material Researcher
2024 Artist-in-Residence, Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island)
2023 A Symbiotic Clay Environment, Dena Bagi MA, AFHEA, Aalto University, Finland – Design Researcher
2018 Project Network Residency, Guldagergaard Ceramic Research Centre, Denmark
EXPERIENCE
2025– Support Project Coordinator, FFYNNU Celf, Plas Glyn-y-Weddw (part-time, freelance)
2023– Freelance Marketing Consultant – Arts & Cultural Organisations
2022–23 Communications Manager, British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent
2019–22 Communications Assistant, British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent
2018–19 Evaluation & Research Assistant, British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2026 Coed Coexist Artist Commission, Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, Wales
2025 The Art of Slowness, Wondering People, London Craft Week
2024 HANDS, Wondering People & 8 Holland Street, London Craft Week 2024 EARTHING, Haeckels, London Craft Week
2023 Artistiaid Ifainc Cymru (Young Welsh Artists), MOMA Machynlleth
2023 On Reflection, Wondering People, Nunnery Gallery, London
2022 Winter Exhibition, Thrown Gallery, London
SELECTED WORKSHOPS
2026 Coed Coexist, Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, Wales
2025 Still Parents, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
2024 SOILS, Sophie Boobyer / Van Abbemuseum, Dutch Design Week
2023 An Introduction to Smoke Firing, The Good Life Society, Wales
2023 Sculptural Earth Bowls, Plas Glyn y Weddw, Llanbedrog
2019 The Clay Quarter, British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent
SELECTED AWARDS / BURSARIES
2024 Home Scholarship, University of the Arts London
2023 International Opportunities Fund, Arts Council of Wales 2023 New Wave Scholarship, A-B Projects, Los Angeles 2018 Solo Exhibition Award, AIR Gallery, Manchester
2018 Graduate Award, Manchester Craft and Design Centre
PRESS
2023 Country Living, February Issue
2022 Red Magazine, December Issue
PDF Version
EDUCATION / TRAINING
2024–26 MA Regenerative Design (Distinction), Central Saint Martins
2024 Soil as Art: Elegy and Revival, Swiss Institute New York (Online)
2023 Natural Building Festival, Estonia
2022 Clay Plastering, School of Natural Building, Anglesey
2015–18 BA Three-Dimensional Design, Manchester School of Art
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS / RESIDENCIES
2026 Making Ecologies Symposium, Victoria and Albert Museum
2026 Material Connections, Aberlleiniog Sculpture Trail, Plas Bodfa, Wales – Material Researcher
2025 Where Land and Water Meet, MA Regenerative Design, LVMH Maison/0 Challenge Fund – Design Researcher
2025 Ecosystem Alliance: Biodiversity & Design Symposium, Central Saint Martins & Maison/0 – Design Researcher
2025 Regenerative Realities, MA Regenerative Design, Central Saint Martins – Design
2024 Regenerate! Symposium, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht – Material Researcher
2024 Artist-in-Residence, Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island)
2023 A Symbiotic Clay Environment, Dena Bagi MA, AFHEA, Aalto University, Finland – Design Researcher
2018 Project Network Residency, Guldagergaard Ceramic Research Centre, Denmark
EXPERIENCE
2025– Support Project Coordinator, FFYNNU Celf, Plas Glyn-y-Weddw (part-time, freelance)
2023– Freelance Marketing Consultant – Arts & Cultural Organisations
2022–23 Communications Manager, British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent
2019–22 Communications Assistant, British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent
2018–19 Evaluation & Research Assistant, British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2026 Coed Coexist Artist Commission, Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, Wales
2025 The Art of Slowness, Wondering People, London Craft Week
2024 HANDS, Wondering People & 8 Holland Street, London Craft Week 2024 EARTHING, Haeckels, London Craft Week
2023 Artistiaid Ifainc Cymru (Young Welsh Artists), MOMA Machynlleth
2023 On Reflection, Wondering People, Nunnery Gallery, London
2022 Winter Exhibition, Thrown Gallery, London
SELECTED WORKSHOPS
2026 Coed Coexist, Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, Wales
2025 Still Parents, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
2024 SOILS, Sophie Boobyer / Van Abbemuseum, Dutch Design Week
2023 An Introduction to Smoke Firing, The Good Life Society, Wales
2023 Sculptural Earth Bowls, Plas Glyn y Weddw, Llanbedrog
2019 The Clay Quarter, British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent
SELECTED AWARDS / BURSARIES
2024 Home Scholarship, University of the Arts London
2023 International Opportunities Fund, Arts Council of Wales 2023 New Wave Scholarship, A-B Projects, Los Angeles 2018 Solo Exhibition Award, AIR Gallery, Manchester
2018 Graduate Award, Manchester Craft and Design Centre
PRESS
2023 Country Living, February Issue
2022 Red Magazine, December Issue
PDF Version
Credit Adam Grüning
Credit Adam Grüning and Holly Fielder
Credit Adam Grüning
Purchasing a Work / Commissions
Pieces are available to purchase at various points throughout the year, once a collection of work is finished. Sign up for the newsletter to hear about this first or alternatively, email to enquire about currently available works.
Commissions are currently open. Find out more and make an enquiry.
Pieces are available to purchase at various points throughout the year, once a collection of work is finished. Sign up for the newsletter to hear about this first or alternatively, email to enquire about currently available works.
Commissions are currently open. Find out more and make an enquiry.