"Glenys Barton's studio is awash with it Natural light. Casting dramatic shadows that emphasise the relief qualities of her ceramic portraits."Her studio overlooks an Essex Estuary: at one end it is glazed from the ground to the eaves. When I visited this weekend she was working on a portrait bust of Joan Bakewell, but around the room there are angelic heads and dancers, and shelves and boxes lined with various projects. I was fascinated by the way that Glenys translates her drawings into clay. Originally trained as a LABAN dancer, she retrained in ceramics at the Royal College of Art, where her tutors included Eduardo Paolozzi, Hans Coper and David Queensbury. There she developed a radically minimal style that ran counter to the earthiness of Studio pottery. Working with clay she follows a family tradition: she grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, where two of her aunts worked in the potteries. Yet Glenys transcends her medium to create powerful and psychologically penetrating portraits that capture the spirit of her subjects."

Simon Martin