Magdalene Odundo was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950, She studied Graphics and Commercial Art at Kabete National Polytechnic before moving to England in 1971 to continue her education. She is most well-known for her ceramic vessels rooted in the sub-Saharan pottery tradition. Her work also draws on a diverse range of influences, including British studio pottery, ancient vessels from Greece and Egypt, and historic ceramics from Asia and Central America. Odundo received her damehood (DBE) in 2020 for services to art and arts education.
Ceramicist Magdalene Odundo was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950, receiving her early education in both India and Kenya. She studied Graphics and Commercial Art at the Kabete National Polytechnic in Kenya before moving to England in 1971 to continue her education, gaining her BA in Ceramics with Printmaking and Photography from West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham (1973-76). Between 1974 and 1975 she travelled to Nigeria, where she worked at the Pottery Training Centre in Abuja, and Kenya, where she learnt the Gbari way of handling clay, a traditional hand-built pottery technique. She also visited San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico to observe the creation of black-burnished pottery. She subsequently taught for three years at the Commonwealth Institute in London (1976–79), before earning her MA from the Royal College of Art, London (1979-82). During her time at the RCA, as well as honing her artistic skills, Odundo also ‘learnt to think’ (Spring 2008, p. 234).
Asked why clay has remained her primary medium, she explained in an interview that ‘There’s much more humanity to clay than in other art forms, where you think first, and then you apply. Clay allows you to immerse yourself and to think with it — thinking and making are synchronised’ (Buck 2022). While Odundo's techniques of coiling and burnishing (which she learnt from rural women potters in Nigeria), rather than wheel, turning and glazing, place her in the tradition of potting in subSaharan Africa, she draws on a diverse range of influences ranging from British studio pottery by European émigrés, Hans Coper and Lucie Rie, ancient vessels from Greece and Egypt, historic ceramics from Asia and Central America, Elizabethan costume and textiles as well as contemporary works by artists including Yinka Shonibare and El Anatsui. Other important artist influences are Auguste Rodin, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, whose methods of representing forms have consistently inspired Odundo. As noted by Monique Kerman, her artistic practice contains ‘seemingly paradoxical elements’ because ‘as a contemporary British artist of African descent, Odundo moves within these multiple contexts as formed and framed by a series of contrasts: local/global; European/African; ancient, inherited traditions/modern art history; and craft techniques/industrial technology’ (Kerman p. 23). This duality is exemplified in her 2001 installation for Acknowledged Sources at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum in Bournemouth, which featured a range of African textiles, such as East African kanga prints, folded in a basket next to a suitcase filled with Land's End fleeces, all set within the opulent paintings and exhibit cases of one of the galleries. This contrast between the two distinct styles of clothing suggested the substantial disparities in climate and culture, while revealing Odundo's migratory experiences across both continents.
Harnessing the metaphorical potential of ceramic vessels, Odundo captures prominent features of the human figure, including mouths, necks, and bodies, with a particular emphasis on the female form. Some of her creations evoke the rounded belly of pregnancy or, through tiny ornamental protrusions, represent vertebrae, an umbilicus, nipples, or raised scarification marks. Odundo's pottery frequently resembles women by reflecting aspects of their decorated appearance, as well as the ways their bodies align with diverse cultural beauty standards, whether African or European. Yearning for perfect, organic forms, Odundo’s ceramic vessels, as noted by Christopher Frayling, express ‘an art which transformed energy and inspiration into restraint and beauty’ (A Private View, 2023). Reflecting upon the human body as her main source for inspiration, Odundo declared that ‘Every day I go into the studio and when I start making a piece of work, I recall the movement of the people that I’ve been looking at […] I love thinking of that relaxation and the breathing that this person is emitting: breathing in and out, creating that vessel in the body, and then exhaling so the body moves back’ (Buck 2019). Odundo’s pottery is not glazed and the hues are derived from the clay's natural colour and delicate layers of slip clay. A polished appearance is attained through manual burnishing both before and after the firing process. Pots may undergo multiple firings: they can be fired first in a purely oxidising environment to turn them a lustrous red–orange, and then in a reducing atmosphere to turn them a rich charcoal-black with a metallic surface.
In 2001 Odundo was appointed Professor of Ceramics at the University of the Creative Arts, Farnham and has been Chancellor at Farnham since 2018. She was awarded the OBE for Services to the Arts in 2008 and received her damehood in the 2020 New Years Honours for services to art and arts education. She has shown her work extensively in the UK and abroad and her recent solo exhibitions included The Hepworth Wakefield (2019), Fitzwilliam Museum (2022) and Farnham's Craft Study Centre (2023). Odundo's vessels are in the permanent collections of nearly 50 international museums. In the UK public domain, Magdalene Odundo's work is represented in UK collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum, The Hepworth Wakefield and the Crafts Council Collection. She lives in Farnham, Surrey, England.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Magdalene Odundo]
Publications related to [Magdalene Odundo] in the Ben Uri Library