Faye Hadfield

Faye Hadfield shapes a ceramic universe populated by laughing, grimacing, or dreamy faces, oscillating between human comedy and fantastical tale. Each piece seems alive at once vessel and character, sculpture and emotion. Her work, at once humorous, fragile, and profoundly sincere, transforms ceramics into an expressive mirror of our emotions.

Trained at Bath Spa University and the School of the Damned before joining the Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics program at the University of Iowa, Hadfield embraces a free, instinctive, and experimental practice. She also studied at the Kunstuniversität Linz in Austria, where she discovered a performative and open approach to the medium. These experiences led her toward an inclusive vision of creation, a constant dialogue between art, humor, gesture, and material. Her anthropomorphic ceramics, often saturated with color and glossy glazes, oscillate between derision and tenderness. The “pot-portraits” she creates, by turns joyful, sheepish, or mischievous, reinterpret English decorative traditions through a contemporary and feminine lens. Each work becomes a mask expressing vulnerability, joy, or everyday melancholy. This tension between apparent naïveté and emotional depth lends her sculptures a theatrical and psychological dimension.

Active on the international art scene for several years, Faye Hadfield has exhibited in Paris, London, Brussels, New York, St. Moritz, Barcelona, and Eskişehir, where the OMM Modern Art Museum holds her piece Scary Vase in Tropical Purple. She has taken part in numerous fairs and exhibitions, Paris Design Week, PAD London, Ceramic Art Andenne, and Collectible Brussels, often alongside Galerie Florian Daguet-Bresson. Recipient of the Harry Walker Young Artist Award and an Honorable Mention at the University of Mississippi National Juried Show, she will undertake a residency at Ceramics Suro in Mexico in 2025. Her work, both popular and refined, embodies a new sensibility in contemporary ceramics, where laughter, color, and the poetry of gesture regain their full dignity.