Joanna Wakefield is a Dorset based, award-winning ceramic artist with over 30 years of experience creating handcrafted sculptures.

Joanna Wakefield: Ceramic Artist

Joanna Wakefield is a ceramic artist based in Poole, Dorset and has worked with clay for more than 30 years. Joanna’s work takes the form of hand-constructed figurative sculptures. These strong forms are mostly built in terracotta or raku clay and then fired in a Raku or primitive sawdust kiln.

Joanna’s work is influenced by prehistoric Middle Eastern and European art and more recent African art. She is especially interested in the ceramics of Mesopotamia, where pots often took animal-shaped vessels or zoomorphic forms. A characteristic feature of the art of this period is a delicate sense of humour, which is evident in her fabulous creatures.

Joanna Wakefield studied for a Diploma in Ceramics in Sydney and Perth (1982-87). In 1996, she graduated with a B.A. in Arts Management from Edith Cowan University, Perth. Joanna now works from her home in Poole, Dorset.

Joanna’s distinctive ceramic art has emerged from an artistically creative family that includes her father Larry Wakefield (1925-1997) – an English painter whose work challenges and reformulates the Modernist vision – and her sister Dinah Wakefield, a Sydney-based painter with whom Joanna has exhibited jointly.