_________
Helena Lacy is a London-based ceramic artist whose practice is inspired by natural movements and their ability to shape and distort materials over time. She works with the tension between structure and unpredictability, using innovative glazing and printing techniques to replicate natural patterns. Drawn to the contrast between flow and form, she embraces the kiln as an active collaborator, allowing chance, distortion, and transformation to guide each outcome.
Storytelling is central to Lacy’s process. While her work often begins with found natural objects, she is increasingly interested in how all objects carry memory, place, and meaning. By focusing on overlooked details and subtle marks, she uncovers the quiet narratives embedded in material things. Her series Object Narratives translates these discoveries into sculptural works, applying map-like markings that reference each object's origin and embed traces of memory and environment into their surfaces.
Her series Re-print explores how ceramic surfaces preserve, distort, or obscure meaning. Reinterpreting classical blue and white porcelain imagery, she layers and stretches motifs to question how visual histories are shaped, altered and retold through form and material. The work reflects her interest in overlooked narratives and the instability of memory, using distortion, repetition, and movement to invite reflection on material storytelling.
Her Fingō Furniture range extends these ideas into functional sculptures. The name fingō - from the Latin to form, shape, and touch - captures the essence of the work. Inspired by the comforting weight and shape of a beach stone from the Jurassic Coast, each piece is designed to hold just one: one cup, one book. The series encourages moments of stillness, re-grounding and reconnection, highlighting the intimate relationships we form with the objects in our homes.
Lacy holds an MA in Ceramics from the Royal College of Art and a BA in Technical Arts and Special Effects from Wimbledon College of Art. She has participated in several international residencies, which have deepened her sensitivity to material, process, and place. She is currently Artist in Residence at the Sarabande Foundation.
