This small smoke-fired ceramic embodies the core concerns of my practice: transformation, containment, and the dialogue between matter and psyche. Its form, at once helmet-like and suggestive of a cave, evokes protection, incubation and interiority, while the egg and crescent articulate archetypal symbols of potential and cyclical renewal. Fire and smoke inscribe the surface, turning the piece into a vessel of alchemical change, a negotiation between destruction and creation. Modest in scale, it nevertheless engages with universal questions of psyche, identity, and transformation, demonstrating how a small object can hold expansive mythic and conceptual meanings.
Chantal Powell is a British artist whose practice is informed by Jungian psychology, alchemical symbolism, and her personal exploration of the unconscious. With a PhD in psychology, she follows a Jungian art-based research approach to engage with archetypal material and the psyche. Working across ceramics, glass, textiles, metal, and painting, she addresses contemporary urgencies around embodiment, ecological kinship, and the sacred intelligence of matter.
