As a child, Rebecca would trace her fingertips across the engraved initials and names of her historic school’s past pupils, etched into 18th century wooden desktops lining the hall’s walls. She was fascinated by those small declarations of existence - names carved into surfaces by hands long gone, each one an attempt to be remembered, to transcend time. Now, watching her young son learn to form his own letters, she is reminded how deeply rooted that urge is: to write ourselves into the world, to leave a mark that says I was here. Names and initials are more than words - they are the fragments of identity. This enduring human impulse, as well as the tactile connection to the past, sits at the heart of Rebecca’s practice.
Rebecca graduated from the Arts University Bournemouth in 2016 with a degree in Costume and Performance Design. There she deepened her love of social historical research - particularly the lived experience of ordinary people - and developed her ability to weave these often overlooked human stories into her creative work. Her practice is grounded in uncovering fragments of the past and reassembling them into tangible, tactile forms.
Over the last two years, Rebecca has transitioned from mixed media - paper, stitch and clay - to working primarily with paper porcelain. Drawn to its delicacy and strength, she hand-builds each piece, often imprinting initials, text and archival textures directly into the surface. The material’s fragility echoes the vulnerability of the histories she explores, while the permanence of fired porcelain mirrors the enduring human desire to be remembered. Her most recent collection, Enclosed, traces the displacement of a yeoman family in Appleby Magna, Leicestershire, during the 18th-century Enclosure Acts.
