The Horned Witch, the Poppet and the Raving Ones by Evelyn Albrow

In this new body of work for Collect 2026, I continue to explore alternative matriarchal utopias. The past, present and future meet on celestial and earth- bound planes, creating dreamy worlds inhabited by monsters, matrons, saints and goddesses. 

Inspired by contemporary and historical spiritual and secular utopias, from Beguinages (founded in 1200s) to everyday communes like the Maison de Babayagas (set up in 2014 in Paris), this work explores ideas around community, solidarity, and feminism. 

The Calliach, a powerful, ancient Gaelic matriarch,  guides them on journeys across the sea in search of new beginnings and their own terrestrial paradise, where, on the horizon, a Beguinage style community offers them respite within walled gardens. They can avail themselves of large baths, choir stalls, and a well-equipped alchemy workshop to prepare for their insurgency against the male-instigated apocalypse.

The Horned Witch, the Poppet, and the Raving Ones

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. 

Stoneware charger.

2026

54D cm