M J Bonnett
Ceramicist, Painter and Sculptor

After studying plant biology at the University of East Anglia I went into teaching. I have always tinkered with art, but encouraged by colleagues in the art department of my last teaching post I took up drawing and painting seriously. I work mostly in oils but have lately been exploring nerikomi style porcelain ceramics.
I have recently become head of Norfolk Dada.

In my work I am trying to find the essence of the subject, be it a figurative, handbuilt animal, a still life, or a landscape of my beloved East Anglia.

I am an associate artist at Cuckoo Farm Sudios near Colchester. This is a collection of artists working in various media and who regularly show at the Benham gallery. In 2023 'The Moon Tells Me' was shown there as part of the Myths and Legends exhibition which explored individual interpretation of our shared cultural stories.
122 x 122 cm
Close up details here

During 2020 I produced and worked on a series called ‘2020 - The Year Indoors’. This was a quartet of domestic still lifes in grisaille which I intend to keep monochrome, one for each season. I wanted to explore the quietude and focus that the shutdown of normal life afforded me, I also felt the need to mark the passing of the year as time itself seemed unhinged and not subject to its own normal rules. Still life seemed very apt!

When I sculpt in clay I want to be able to feel life in the finished piece, whether a sacred animal or a prosaic pot. With clay I feel a connection to deep time and the very first artists who painted the animals of their environment or made models of them to garner success in their hunts, or to worship them - who knows? But the process of forming an animal from clay for me is an act of worship.