Jonquil Cook Ceramics at Low Wood Bay

The ongoing success of a Low Wood Bay’s art gallery installation has resulted in an expansion into the world of stoneware ceramics and sculpture.

English Lakes Hotels has commissioned British ceramics expert Jonquil Cook to feature her works in the ‘Art in the Atrium’ exhibition, with a new display area for sculpture and ceramics.

Jonquil Cook

Jonquil Cook's stoneware ceramics artwork has been featured across the globe, including recent large scale tile mural installations in North America, France and now London, where she produces highly decorative pieces from the TAM studios in Woolwich Dockyard.

Artistic Technique & Themes

Working with high fired stoneware clay and using custom made slips and glazes, Jonquil throws and hand-builds a range of items including vases, platters and tile panels, always with the dual aims of functionality and beauty.

Surface decoration is hand-carved, freehand, with detailed sgraffito, a method adapted from relief printmaking techniques. Each piece is entirely handmade and unique: no moulds or templates are used. The time and cost of making depends on the size of the finished piece and the complexity of the decoration. Recurrent themes appearing on the relief surface of her work, such as swimming koi carp and the natural forms of wild flowers and grasses, have been developed over years of observation of the local natural environment.

All of Jonquil’s ceramics are fired twice in the kiln, first to just under 1000 degrees centigrade, and then, once glazed, to 1260 degrees. This second firing makes the product extremely strong and non-porous. Jonquil’s signature style and method has been developed over two decades, during which a series of apprenticeships and studio residencies have led her from the snowy woods of north America to rural Burgundy in France.

Jonquil’s work has found homes across the globe, including recent large scale tile mural installations in the US and UK.