Earth Mirrors

Earth Mirrors
2025 - 2026
Unfired burnished London clay, some versions with graphite or carbon pigment burnished into the surface

It seems a paradox, to see yourself in dirt. But burnishing is repetitive touch, and it is only through that touch that the reflection becomes possible. Touch makes something visible.

I work with clay sourced from sites across London, cast into discs and semi-spheres. Once leather hard, I burnish the surface by hand until the platelets align and it becomes reflective.

When I first encountered a 17th-century plate inscribed "You & I Are Earth 1661," I was jolted by how contemporary it felt. The material was speaking directly across 400 years: that it is made of earth, and one day I will be earth too. Handling clay connects us physically with deep time. It has taken millennia to form and will exist long after we do.

Burnishing returns clay toward what it was before it fragmented into particles. Stone can hold a reflection. This is clay becoming stone again. The repetitive movement of smoothing this ancient material until you can see yourself in it is a kind of dialogue with time. I add pigment inclusions to see what they reflect, graphite, carbon that i make myself. They become like a scrying vessel made from ancient ground.

Earth Mirror II
2026
Unfired clay, burnished with graphite
8 × 10cm