Evelyn Albrow’s practice is inspired by contemporary and historical utopias, both spiritual and secular, ranging from Beguinages (founded in the 1200s) to everyday communes like the Maison de Babayagas (set up in 2014 in Paris). Her ceramics tell stories of matriarchal utopias, with each piece showing a dreamy world inhabited by monsters, matrons, saints, and goddesses meeting on celestial planes; through this Evelyn explore ideas around community, solidarity, and feminism.

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The walking head with heaped cornettes on her head is based on the 18th-century painting ‘The Horned Witch’ (unknown painter). Said to be Katherina Kepler, a known herbalist and healer. She surveys a wild rumpus, a ceilidh where dancers pull apart a poppet wearing a crown in front of a statue of Cybele, the mother goddess and protector of nature. The dancers were inspired by the Maenads, known as the ‘raving ones’. Mythical women who abandoned their homes to roam the mountains and forests singing and dancing in a state of ecstatic frenzy. I was also looking at Breughel's dancing peasants and thinking of my Glaswegian nan, who has passed on a love of ceilidhs.

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Painted and glazed stoneware.

2026