Maggi Gilesartist • sculptorNewquay (Groot-Brittannië) 1938

The originally English ceramist Maggi Giles studied drawing, painting and design. In 1965 she came to the Netherlands. She found work as a designer in the building ceramics department of 'De Porceleyne Fles' in Delft. She also follows evening classes at the Free Academy in The Hague. In 1970 she starts making ceramic forms herself. In the same year, through Karel Appel, she has her first solo exhibition in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum. In addition to her hand-formed sculptures, she also makes drawings and paintings. Animals are common in her work, as is the landscape. Her ceramic forms arise from the figures drawn in her creation story 'The Perfect Planet' (1980). Characteristic of her work are its playfulness, the exuberant use of colour and dark contours. In addition to the autonomous sculptures, Maggi Giles has also made a lot of commissioned work, for example wall reliefs in schools.