Meet The Maker – Shirley Vauvelle

Hi Shirley, can you start by telling us how your childhood influenced your creativity today? 

All my childhood memories really are about making. I’ve always been a collector of natural materials. I used to collect shells and pebbles and things on holiday. I was quite entrepreneurial, even as a 12 year old, my first business was painting pebbles and taking them to the local shop and selling them. Now everywhere I travel, I take my sketchbook and I’m always looking. My son and daughter-in-law went sailing for 2 or 3 years, and so I’d go and visit them in the Caribbean and I’d just pick up things on the beach. There was a little piece of coral all joined together with seaweed, almost like a little natural rattle. I drew it, made a little video of it and then when I got back, I replicated that, in my own way and that became an element of one of my sculptural components. I’m always looking at shape and form. 

Could you tell us about your upcoming exhibition with The Biscuit Factory and how you chose the name ‘Source Material’?

I started to think about the history of the plants within my garden, some have been here for maybe 200 odd years, some were planted here by the generations before and some we brought from the other house. Friends have given us plants, and I’ve propagated plants. Some are self-seeded by birds coming in. So there’s all of this behind the material that starts to work in your mind when you’re painting it, which I find fascinating. I did a series of paintings then came from that and I thought, well, I want to link that up with the sculpture. So I’ve started doing some bud sculptures and I want to do more of that connecting those with the beasts. Within the exhibition, there will be an element of that thought process in the main body of work. And I also, because it’s a lovely big space, I really want the chance to do a lovely big herd there as well. The source material title came from thinking about that context. And I thought, this is my source material. It’s a simple thing really. Painting a still life really doesn’t interest me but if you actually think about the context of where that jug came from or you know where those plants come from, it kind of extends your thought process, when you’re looking at the still life or whatever you might be painting.

Your sculptures depict an imagined tribe of creatures who inhabit a universal sky, coexisting with plants, birds, and fish. If one of your creatures could speak, what do you think it would say?

They’re all focussed on purpose, my beasts, so they’d say that we all have a purpose within this world of ours. And we keep to our purposes. And that creates harmony and peace and tranquillity. It’s not like our world at all, but in their world, that’s what it’s like.

Can you tell us more about your use of found objects in your work? Do you search for specific objects to incorporate into your pieces or do the materials find you?

I’m quite particular now with what I’ll bring back to the studio. Quite, quite fussy. But yes, they do find me. My eye just scans. I can’t help it. Everywhere I go, even skips and things like that. But they have to have that weathered quality. That’s what I’ve loved all of my life. I did a whole series of allotment photos when I was on my degree course. I’ve always been drawn to weathered surfaces. Riverbanks are quite interesting because you kind of get more industrial things and bones. I do actually quite like using bones. I like glass as well, but not in a pretty way. I recently found a glass stem that had been very river-worn, you know, so it was very smooth and I used it. It’s not a natural thing at all, but it made quite a nice juxtaposition with the piece.

Many of your sculptures feel as though they are negotiating balance. What interests you about the relationship between forms resting on another?

I quite like problem solving. I like problem solving in sculpture and paintings and I do see that as the process. I used to love Lego when I was little so I think that’s part of it! You know, that stacking kind of working out how everything’s going to go. And I like pushing that. I like pushing the idea of balance as well. And how you can do that within the context of firing a piece. How it’s going to be transported, how it’s going to work in a gallery situation. I quite like working out all of those different things that come into a piece of artwork, a piece of sculpture.

You have recently begun exhibiting paintings. Does your creative process differ in this medium from working with clay? 

The surface of the canvas is very similar to the surface of clay. I look at them both as canvases really. It’s just a very different animal of materials. Clay goes through very wet, kind of more pliable, then leather hard, then it goes really chalky and dirty and powdery. Whereas paint is none of that, it stays more or less in the same state unless you want to water it down or not. So yeah, it’s just the difference in the materials, I think. But the actual process, for me, I don’t feel there’s much difference mentally. There’s a signature of style there that you can see in both the paintings and sculpture. Also I’m using plants within the surface of the beasts, you know, I usually use physical plant materials and I’m painting plant materials most of the time. The throughline is my subject matter. That’s the connection really.

Your home studio is extraordinary. What did you want this space to give you that a conventional studio couldn’t?

I’m very lucky to have this space. It’s quite unique, really. The light is wonderful. It didn’t start off as a studio, and it grew very slowly and organically. But it gives me flexibility and the fact that, if anything needs doing in the garden or in the home, I can just nip out and do stuff. I’m quite strict though. I spend an awful lot of time at my desk. 

Finally, do the seasonal shifts outside in your beautiful garden affect what happens in the studio? Are there particular viewpoints which spark the most inspiration?

I don’t have a favourite viewpoint. It changes all the time, from day to day. That’s what I love, watching that. I’m never short of inspiration. That’s because I’m surrounded by so much beauty all the time here. I’m very, very lucky. Every day there’s little changes in colour, little changes in light. Things exposed. Things covered. For a long period of time now, I’ve not been short of inspiration, which is lovely.

Visit Shirley’s headline exhibition, ‘Source Material’, in gallery until 22 November 2026 or browse a curated selection of her artwork online.