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Rose Schmits is a trans ceramicist from Delft, the Netherlands. Her ceramic work is inspired by her experience as a trans woman and her heritage as someone who hails from a city with a rich pottery history.
One of her series of works involves porcelain vessels seemingly having sprouted spidery legs and tentacles ready to scuttle away. The lively vessels function as a commentary about the changeability and variety of bodies, as well as exploring a different approach to ceramic practice.
Rose’s studio at the Oxo Tower Wharf is set up as an open studio, displaying both the pots and the process that goes into their creation. With her potter’s wheel positioned against the window of her studio, the pottery craft is celebrated and put on display.
All her work in some way “misbehaves” as she puts it. The vessels she creates will always have an element to them that plays with the idea of what ceramic art can be, whether this is putting phrases relating to contemporary issues or making vessels that don’t quite work in the way you expect a vessel to function. Her Crawler Pots collection showcases vessels that seem lively and with a mind of their own, defying gravity on their spindly legs. Rose’s work is both fine art and craft and an exploration of the rules of pottery can be broken in interesting ways.
Rose also joined the Great Pottery Throw Down in its fourth series as the studio technician.
