“Shall we get peach juice?” asks ceramicist Alma Berrow as she collects me from the end of a slightly spooky footpath that runs along the train track in North London’s Willesden Junction, where the artist’s studio is. The juice comes in those glass bottles that, as Berrow points out, make a really satisfying sound when you tap the bottom with the palm of your hand. I’m always reminded of holidaying when I drink Pago juices, not to mention it’s a sunny day. I feel something similar when I look at Berrow’s work, it’s most transporting.
Berrow’s oeuvre is eclectic, decadent, slightly grotesque yet often delicious. Gluttonous displays juxtapose banana skins, rotten lemons, shrimp and oyster shells, black gammon boards, ashtrays and cigarettes, lots of cigarettes. There’s something so deeply human about her mock-real work. It’s neither a critique nor complement, just a sociological observation – or, a wink, as she puts it.
The pastry chef turned ceramicist draws inspiration from food and family. Only taking up ceramics in lockdown, the artist has quickly soared to new heights, exhibiting her work at a plethora of galleries including Sapling Gallery and Sotherby’s. And, come October, Berrow is hosting a solo show at London’s Lamb Gallery.
Rose Dodd: From mouldy citrus fruits to seafood and cigarette butts in excess, your ceramics are relaxed yet decadent; accidental, juxtaposed yet relatable. I can’t help but feel transported to a coastal paradise in, I don’t know, Southern France. What is the thought process behind your work?
Alma Berrow: A lot of my work is based around humans, not always in the most obvious ways either. Food is also a huge inspiration. Both my parents have been chefs, my sister is a chef and I worked as a pastry chef – it always comes back to food. I experiment too. Mouldy lemons, for example, came to me after I crossed paths with this glaze that contains these bluey/green exploding crystals. I saw it and was just like, mouldy lemons!
It also depends on whether I’m making for myself or for a show and then what the context of the show is. At Private and Public Gallery in Jersey, where I did a joint exhibition with painter Florence Hutchins, I wanted to portray a sense of being on holiday and being completely gluttonous. You know, cake at three in the afternoon, then at four, cheese at five followed by dinner. Piles of old oyster shells, lobster, Kodak boxes of film – and cigarettes.
When I showed with Sapling Gallery, I was considering my three Kleshas, the Budhist belief that we all have three poisons or emotional obscurations. I focused on Desire, Anger and Uncertainty. For desire, I made mouldy lemons because no matter how much you might want something to last, or when life hands you lemons, nothing lasts forever so the lemons are somewhat about understanding that it’s gone and being okay with that. Last year I was in a really low place and I developed this awful sense of jealousy and anger, which really wasn’t me. To represent this, I made a plate of green peas and pills or antidepressants. As the phrase goes: pea-green with envy. For uncertainty, I considered the Urn of Uncertainty and made an urn, which I called, wait for it… Urncertainty [laughs].
RD: Your representation of different human sentiments is almost synaesthetic. I feel these emotions through your ceramic portrayal of them.
AB: It’s something I’m trying to process whilst working. I think all art has meaning in some way or another. There’s always a reason why people do things. I think that’s why art school is good as it allows you the time, space and resources to question something and in turn be questioned by your tutors. Having not been myself, that’s something I’m now trying to do introspectively. I’m not struggling with it, in fact I’m very much enjoying it and I definitely know what the symbolic meanings are.
RD: What exactly is that?
AB: A lot of it is youth, society and people. Often the people I’m surrounded by. It’s neither positive nor negative. I’m just putting it out there and saying that this is something that’s happening. And, then there’s excess: the cigarettes, the drugs, the condoms, wedding rings being thrown into the mix, and it’s mocking but also isn’t’ mocking as I’m not really pointing at anyone. I suppose it’s sort of like a wink.
RD: There’s something so poignant about a spent cigarette.
AB: Cigarettes are such good fuck yous. They’re nostalgic, cool, sexy – all these things that they’re not supposed to be. Smoking is not cool or sexy or clever but somehow it’s all those things. Disclaimer, I’m not trying to promote smoking through my work.
RD: I don’t think you do, a stubbed out cigarette butt is hardly inviting.
AB: And a dirty ashtray is a filthy, repugnant, smelly thing but in clay with gold flecks, it’s like candy. I love it.
RD: Are you a smoker yourself?
AB: I might be but I’m quitting. I bought a vape and no cigarettes before 2pm.
Images courtesy of Alma Berrow. Photography by Moritz Matthias.
RD: Let’s talk about the process. Once you’ve come up with an idea, how do you transform it into the final glazed ceramic?
AB: It’s such a fun process, starting with something squidgy and just making whatever the hell you like out of it. Everything is handmade with Earthenware clay, fired until bisque at 1100 degrees then hand painted with fine powdered paints. I even do the glazes by hand as it’s easier to maintain the mock-reality detailing. Then I’ll fire it in the kiln again at 1250 degrees and after that I’ll apply any gold with this really fumey gold luster and fire that at 750 degrees. Here, smell it.
RD: Wow, that’s potent.
AB: Yeh, you need the windows open.
This is the kiln, it’s my mums from like 1970-something. When I first got the studio, my mum gave it to me and before that, her teacher had given it to her. I adore it. Then this [points to new kiln], this is a new kiln that my studio-mate and I bought and, honestly, I hate it. Comparatively, it’s so chic but I don’t trust it. I don’t know why. My mum’s kiln feels like home? I know him, how he fires my work. I know he’ll hit temperature, I know how he’ll cool down. Whereas the other guy, every time I fire something, it’s risky business.
RD: How do you deal with losing work?
AB: When I first started, I’d lose like two to three pieces every firing, now I’ll lose one every couple of firings. Actually, I tell a lie, I don’t make the super large ashtrays by hand, I’ve made a mould for them as they’re just so big they’re at a higher risk of breaking. There’s still a risk using the mould but breaking things is all part of the process. It’s an important part of the learning curb. Look, this is a whole box of stuff that didn’t fire right in the kiln.
Images courtesy of Alma Berrow. Photography by Moritz Matthias.
RD: What do you find most inspiring about what you do?
AB: The ability to make. I feel so incredibly grateful everyday coming into my studio and having this space where I can make these weird and wonderful things that make me giggle and that there’s an appreciation from other people for it.
RD: Speaking of your studio. It’s such an incredible space, I feel like I’m inside your brain. I’ve never seen so much sky in London, there’s not a high rise building in sight.
AB: Space for me is so important, as is natural light. I spend so much time here alone, I’d really struggle without the light or the view. It’s one of the few places in London left without high rises so nothing is obstructing my view and I feel very free. It gets cold in winter, as you can imagine – these windows are not double glazed. But in summer, wow, it’s bliss. Me and my studio mate will sit up on the roof in summer for a cigarette, which we’re not allowed to do, but we do!
RD: Where do you draw inspiration from?
AB: I love Yoki, which is a traditional Japanese form of narrative illustration that depicts gods and surreal monsters. Often they’re quite grotesque but in a charming and funny way. Niki de Saint Phalle is one of my favourite artists. Her colours are bright, playful, even childlike but simultaneously very sophisticated. There’s so much movement in her work, too. Big boobied, bottomed, wibbly wobbly women that are quite surreal. Do you know Barbara Cartland? She’s an artist and writer who only wore pink and ate and drank pink things. She wrote this cookbook called ‘The Romance of Food’. In this book were some horrendous foods set up in these fantastic, decadent, gross scenes which have really inspired some of my pieces.
I recently saw Dalí’s Madonna at MOMA and it’s one of the most insane pieces of work I’ve ever seen in my life that will stick in my mind for the rest of my life. God, there are just so many amazing artists, and each I find, I love. Being thirty and really just starting a career in the art world, my knowledge of art is incredibly lacklustre but I’m working on it – and absolutely loving doing so.
RD: And, what about outside of the studio, what are you doing outside of your craft?
AB: Art has always been a hobby of mine. Then it became my job and I thought I didn’t have any hobbies outside of it. I recently had to redefine my boundaries with art, this thing that pays my rent and therefore each time, my work needs to always be better and better. There came a point where I realised I needed to just stop and enjoy it. I also realised I needed to get new hobbies outside of my job, so I’ve started baking again. I’ve promised myself, two cakes a month – at least. I recently read The Artist’s Way. Have you read it? It’s great. One of the steps is connecting with your creativity outside of your craft, perhaps going to an art store and buying, I don’t know, gold stars or pipe cleaners – something fun and something for you. See these paint brushes, I get such a kick out of buying these goat hair brushes. It makes me so happy but it’s for my work so I have to buy something else, something completely different. It’s a good book, you should read it.
RD: On the subject of baking, you mentioned you were a pastry chef. Arguably an art form but certainly a different one from the avenue you’re pursuing today. Tell me about this and your journey to where you are today.
AB: When I was in Falmouth studying, I’d make a cake nearly every night. Anyway, when I dropped out, I didn’t know what to do with myself. My sister suggested I do pastry as I always enjoyed baking. I went to my parents and announced that I wanted to go to Le Cordon Bleu to which they said “fuck no” and told me to go find a kitchen that’ll hire me so that’s what I did for about a year, working as a pastry chef. I then left, travelled a bit then worked with an NGO in Malawi.
I did youth work for a long time and it’s something I’d still like to do. I then moved to Bristol for a while and became a bread chef for a year, then went back into charity work with hospitality work on the side which I loved. After two and a half years it was time to leave that, then Covid hit, ceramics with mum who is a ceramicist, and here we are.
RD: Quite the CV. You mentioned your mum is also a ceramicist. When did you start working with clay? Was clay a frequently used medium for play at home growing up?
AB: I started ceramics in lockdown, these are the first pieces I made [she holds up a lighter and matches made from clay]. I went home to my mum’s in Dorset, I’d just quit my job in hospitality and I really wanted to use the time to make something, so with my mum’s help, I started with clay and I made some little bits: small boxes with little body parts on them, lighters with sexy ladies on them. Here are my original cigarettes! I actually used these as buttons on a suit I made. It wasn’t until later that I decided to make an ashtray.
Growing up, we were all really creative but none of us did ceramics. I think we were desperate for our own thing and ceramics was mum’s thing. I always went for 2D art. Then in lockdown, we all went into the studio with our mum. It was really healing.
RD: Aside from more cakes, what’s in the pipeline?
AB: Well, I’m currently working towards a solo show at Lamb Gallery which I’m wildly excited for. This one is a bathroom installation where I’ll be playing not just with ceramics but embroidery, metalworks, woodwork. As a child, the bathroom was the ultimate playground, wasn’t it? You’d be deep sea diving, shaving with a toothbrush, making flannels into knickers or headdresses and towels into Grecian robes. It’s going to be quite surreal, toying with the concept of body parts as bathroom accessories, taps, towel rails et cetera. It opens on the 5th of October, I’m excited.
RD: Me too!
