Loraine Rutt
Loraine Rutt is a British artist who lives and works in London. Working predominantly in ceramics, she also draws and constructs works in paper, having previously worked as a cartographer at Birkbeck College, and currently exhibits with TAG Fine Arts.
Artist Statement
Maps have an implied honesty, yet the transformation from Earth’s sphere to flat plane requires something to yield - to be stretched,shrunk,orerased.Thisaltersthe ‘facts’andinfluencesperceptionofplaceand oursenseofbelongingandidentity.Mywork plays on this riff of altered representation of factual mapping. I enjoy the lyricism of transforming two-dimensional maps of three-dimensional places, back into threedimensionalobjects.
Playing with scale and volume, whether it’s a pocket globe putting the world in your hand, or topography with amplified relief, I aimtodrawfocustoaparticulartheme,beit environmentalorsocialinequality,or amonumentalvoyage.
Maps can excite, engage, inspire, motivate and documenthistory.Mypracticeishonedby threedecadesoffineclayyieldingtofingertips, using improvised tools to create surfaces with map-like clarity. By transcribing source material gathered via the Internet into clay, the shifting digital landscape is transformed into permanent analogue artefact.
This Mapping Earth exhibition marks the beginning of a personal research project into the manuscript maps in The Royal GeographicalSocietyCollection.Drawntothe objects that reveal the human hand charting interpretations of place, I am fascinated by the liminal traces of geographical experience in the overlap of explorer, surveyor, cartographer and viewer.
Introduction by Veronica Simpson
For Loraine Rutt, it was a seminal moment in her life as well as her career as a fine art ceramicist, when former astronaut Colonel Alfred ‘Al’ Worden picked up one of her luminous, delicately scribed porcelain globes, in 2018, and told her it evoked exactly that magical quality he recalled when he first glimpsed our blue planet from the window of the orbiting Apollo 15 spacecraft, in 1971.
Given that her twin passions for cartography and clay formed in childhood, it was perhaps inevitable that Rutt would end up combining the two in her work.
But while she displays an extraordinary attention to detail when it comes to contours, perspectives and colour, it is not a replica that she is seeking to create. Rather it is that cartographer’s exactitude and discipline combined with a hunger to reveal more about each piece and its subject – whether distant planet or sunken river – through the specific materials and processes she uses or the treatments which subtly document the impacts of human interaction with place over time.
She says: “The thing that unites all my work is human interaction with landscape.”
Divided Globe Triptych
Segment and Poles Apart
Porcelain. 2018 , Edition of 20
Edition number 4, 2024
Scale 1:26 000 000, Vertical scale 1:500 000
200 x 72 x 4 cm
The Divided Globe Triptych is a 26-piece ceramic relief map. Based on an original hand-drawn contour map, each tile was moulded in one millimetre layers of soft porcelain forming a stepped relief model.
From these layered models the landscape relief detail was sculpted by hand and eye using Google Earth and satellite imagery for reference.
The malleable nature of porcelain lends itself well to depictions of natural topography; the fineness of porcelain particles can capture the tiniest of marks.
From plaster moulds of the original master tiles, each edition is cast in liquid clay slip. The details of coastlines, rivers, graticule are all scribed by hand, using purpose made fine tools. After drying, the raw clay is painted.
“The metal oxides settle into the absorbent porcelain surface, and I am mindful that it is not unlike river sediments, and the movement of the soft brush washing them into this porous surface feels reminiscent of the tides lapping at the shore”.
The tiles are then fired at over 1200 degrees Celsius in the kiln, fusing the clay and colour particles.
Divided Globe Triptych is a 1,000 hour knee jerk response to the post-truth fake news permeating contemporary newsfeeds, and reflects the modern world where regions are separating, boundaries are being erected and communities are increasingly divided.
This work counters the common perceptionbased on Mercator’s 500 year old masterpiece - of the world map as a rectangle, cleft at the Bering Strait, and exaggerated in size with distance from the Equator. This common perception favours Europe; the poles are barely registered.
Instead the world is presented in an equal area projection, so the sizes of continents and oceans are comparatively accurate.
Individually framed, the parts can be rearranged to enable locations other than those along the Prime Meridian to become the centre of the map.
EARTH
An exhibition at Collect Open 2022, EARTH comprised a collection of world maps presented as faux archaeological objects. Each piece explored a point in time or historic era that has shaped our world view.
Using an eclectic range of ceramic processes, each map seeks to combine cartographic accuracy with explorations of ceramic materials, for example by including carbon-negative material diverted from landfill.
We live everyday with maps reflecting and prescribing how we see the world, from the Eurocentric Mercator projection to the user-centric digital maps in our devices.
The collection of ceramics EARTH questions how maps influence our sense of place, belonging, and identity.
This work has been made possible with the support of The Arts Council England Lottery Fund Project Grant.
MINE
Commodities & Consumption
vs. Climate & Conservation
1887 & 2022
Porcelain, stoneware, recycled oxides & crushed globe seconds, OurCarbon*, inlay detail, lustre. 2022. Edition of 5
Referencing geological mapping and mineral research, with inscribed drawing after a Levi Walter Yaggy 1887 school room geology chart from the ‘Golden Age’ of expansion of industrial mining.
The current need to end fossil fuel consumption to preserve the environment has paradoxically led to increased geological searches for rareearth metals and other elements used in new technology batteries for phones and vehicles.
IMPACT CRATER
Porcelain, recycled ceramic waste, and recycled gilding waste 2022
Globe 5.5 cm, Scale 1:231 672 727
Open Variable Edition Number 1
A precursor to MINE, this piece references the formation of Earth from the accretion of particles. Mindful of the carbon footprint of my studio practice I recycle all of my ceramic materials. Clay can be recycled indefinitely before it is fired.
The metal oxides used in colouring are washed into the raw clay surface, and the water pots used for the brushes are left to settle out and be collected into a metal rich sediment, prevented from entering the water system, and used to make iridescent inclusions.
This piece was made from gathering these recycled waste materials and cramming a fired
DIAGRAMS FOR DISCOURSE ON SCALE AND PERSPECTIVE
Porcelain, inlay, ceramic oxides, 2024
Each 29 x 2cm. Edition of 5
Diagrams for Discourse on Scale and Perspective is a set of five porcelain plates, four of which explore a view of Earth from space, and the fifth a view from Earth’s orbit back towards the beginning of time.
Inspired by text book illustrations and the earliest known maps on clay tablets from Ancient Mesopotamia, the source material for all was gathered from Wikipedia searches. This free information, available to anyone with access to a mobile phone, can be edited
and altered at any time. By scribing this digitally gathered data into porcelain, this fluid contemporary landscape is transformed into permanent analogue artefact.
Each plate combines a map or diagram with text, including bibliography, with the whole work particularly influenced by the Wikipedia page on ‘Peace’ and the quote from founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, Johan Galtung: “... the ability to look at the bigger picture”, and Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”.
Plate 1.
The Water HemisphereDa Vinci’s Microcosm
Themapisbasedon“TheWater Hemisphere Map” by Bill Rankin (radicalcartography.net).
It contains less than one-fifth of the Earth’s landmass and 7% of the world’s population.
The major ocean currents are inscribed with extracts from the passage by Leonardo da Vinci:
“By the ancients man has been called the world in miniature.”
Exhibited with TAG Fine Arts at the London Art Fair 2025
Source: da Vinci, Leonardo: from the Codex Leicester in: The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, vol. ii, p. 179 (JeanPaulRichtered.1883)
Plate 2.
The Land HemispherePeace
Themapisbasedon“TheHumanHemisphere Map” by Bill Rankin (radicalcartography.net).
It contains the majority of the landmass and 93% of the world’s population.
Within the landmass are inscribed extracts from the Wikipedia page ‘Peace’:
“Peacemeanssocietalfriendshipandharmonyinthe absenceofhostilityandviolence...Ithasbeenargued by some that inner qualities such as tranquillity, patience,respect,compassion,kindness,self-control, courage, moderation, forgiveness, equanimity, and the ability to see the big picture can promote peace within an individual, regardless of the external circumstancesintheirlife.
The term ‘peace’ originates from the Anglo-French ‘pes’, and the Old French ‘pais’, meaning peace, reconciliation,silence,agreement(11thcentury).The Anglo-Frenchterm‘pes’itselfcomesfromtheLatin ‘pax’,meaningpeace,compact,agreement,treatyof peace,tranquillity,absenceofhostility,harmony”
Exhibited with TAG Fine Arts at the London Art Fair 2025
Source: Galtung, Johan (31 July 1996). Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilisation (1st Ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications Ltd.ISBN978-0-8039-7511-8
Plate 3.
Communication SatellitesESRI Satellite Explorer
Enabling Wikipedia and the dissemination of information and communication globally are the geosynchronous satellites. The schematic map has been drawn from a screengrab of a live interactive map of satellites on the Firefly Basemap by John Nelson.
The orbits of some of the 4500 satellites that gather and share information are traced with text containing facts from ESRI Satellite Explorer.
Source: The basemap data providers are: ESRI, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User Community.
Plate 4.
Pale Blue Dot - Voyager 1
The drawing is based on the photograph of Earth taken on 14th February 1990 by the Voyager 1 space probe from an unprecedented distance of approximately 16 billion kilometres as part of that day’s Family Portrait series of images of the Solar System. In the photograph, Earth’s apparent size is
less than a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of sunlight reflected by the camera. Commissioned by NASA and resulting from the advocacy of astronomer and author, Carl Sagan, the photograph was interpreted in Sagan’s 1994 book, “Pale Blue Dot”, as representing humanity’s miniscule and ephemeral place amidst the cosmos.
Source: Image NASA JPR Plate
5.
Hubble Deep Field
The drawings on this plate were compiled from a combination of images found on Wikipedia, and the NASA and ESA Hubble website. It is a view of nearly 10,000 galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colours.
The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old.
The nearest galaxies - the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and ellipticals - thrived about 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion years old.
Source: NASA, ESA and S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team
CURRENT WORK
Each piece in this ongoing series draws out the flow of water as the central muse. By their quiet absence, buildings, roads, and railways - predominantly the focus of maps - take a secondary role, revealing the landscape that underpins our settlements.
Bringing the rivers, coastlines, and ocean currents to the fore, these works explore our essential relationship with water.
As an island nation, we are drawn to the sea, whose ebb and flow defines our borders. Some of these works explore the liminal places between high and low tide in macro detail, whilst others, Shipping Forecast for example, are more allegorical and nod to a tradition of narrative and souvenir ceramics.
THAMES BASIN
Porcelain, inlay, ceramic oxides. 2023.
Scale 1:171 000, 50 x 145 x 2cm
Open variable edition number 1
The Thames rises near Kemble in Gloucestershire and flows 215 miles through the South East of England, through London to the sea. Maps of this area are predominantly focused on the built environment of this highly populated area, and at this scale the river is generally invisible.
Conceived in lockdown, this map of the Thames brings our essential relationship with this river to the fore.
Thames Basin is a series of five plates made for an installation at “Tangible”, an exhibition by seven artist makers at OXO Tower Gallery on the Southbank of the Thames, May 2023. The map could be viewed simultaneously watching the river roll by outside the gallery, giving reference to where the body of water had flowed from, and where it was flowing to.
“Iworkinananalogueway,Ileftmycartographic job at Birkbeck for an art degree in 1987 when digital cartography was in its infancy, preferring the physicality of Rotring pens and drafting film over mouse and screen.
The data I wished to include in this piece was the entire River Thames and its tributaries, the
catchment boundary, the terrain that dictates the river flow as 50m contour lines, the OS 10km grid for alignment and scale, and public open recreation spaces.”
This was initially gathered by tracing Ordnance Survey 1:25 000, but at this scale the working drawing would have been 13 metres long. Via The British Cartographic Society, a connection was made with Clare Seldon, who collated the required data from different digital data sets, producing a map that could be scaled and adapted as a base for the artwork.
The basins are handmade in porcelain, the edges of each are embossed with a dotted line made from a cog from a clock mechanisma subtle reference to the passage of timeand marked with NESW compass direction. The grid is lightly cut into the surface with a scalpel to allow an ultra-fine line, the contours scribed in with a needle then inlaid with a mix of ceramic oxides that melt to form a bronze coloured slip. The rivers were scribed into the surface with a needle, and the open spaces stippled.
The domestic scale of the shallow basins is reference to the fleeting moments that water from the river passes through every home and every plumbed building on its path to the sea.
Shipping Forecast
Porcelain, inlaid text, underglaze, layered glazes, 2023, 40 x 40 x 2cm
Originally sent by telegram 150 years ago, The Shipping Forecast was established by Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy, Captain of HMS Beagle and the Founder of the Met Office, as a service to improve the safety of all at sea. The BBC has transmitted the synopsis of the weather to vessels at sea since January 1924.
A souvenir of the British Isles at a time when the waters and seamless trade between our nearest neighbours became highly politicised, the multiple layers of glaze reveal and obfuscate the maritime regions.
The River Cam
Ashwell to the Great River Ouse
Stoneware, inlaid oxides, glaze and enamel, 2011 40 x 40 x 2cm
Cambridge lies some 40 miles inland from the sea, yet the heart of this ancient city rests just 6 metres above sea level.
This shallow platter is inscribed with a map of the river, in its entirety from source to confluence, drawn by hand from a transcript of the waterways on the Ordnance Survey 1:25 000.
Like the network of channels draining the fenlands it depicts, the sections of river are cut out and reorganised to make the field workable.
THAMES WATER
CHALK
Porcelain, ceramic oxide inlay, glaze, Our Carbon. 2023
Edition of 5 , 25 x 44 x 2cm
A raised relief porcelain artwork first shown in the exhibition, “Tangible”, at the OXO Tower Gallery in May 2023. Created to be viewed alongside the flowing Thames River outside the gallery, to connect with the river and the landscape through which the water passing the gallery has flowed.
Addressing the problems related to water quality and water use that negatively impact the river network, the piece contains “Our Carbon” which is a carbon negative by-product from sewage treatment. The technology exists to convert this problematic waste into a useful material, yet it requires a wider awareness to promote the initiative and investment. In this form, the “Our Carbon” in the glaze creates an iron rich fleck that randomly covers the extent of the map.
The edges of the piece are determined by the Thames Water Catchment area, and the thickness of the edge is painted with platinum lustre, symbolic of the ‘profits’ of the Thames Water Company being extracted from the utility.
Porcelain, 2023
Edition of 5, 25 x 44 x 2cm
There are only 210 chalk streams in the world, and 160 of those are in the U. K., 47 of which are in this Thames Water Catchment area. This limited edition of the Thames Water series is made from thin translucent porcelain.
“My grandad worked as a lathe turner for engineers, Benhams, on the banks of the River Wandle from 1931 at the age of 14 until he retired. At weekends, he’d cycle from Southfields to the other chalk streams to fish.”
Mapping Earth
New work made especially for the exhibition at The Royal Geographical Society, this limited edition of pocket globes with ancient bog oak is a collaborative project with bases by craftsman, Adrian Swinstead, an artist working primarily with bog oak.
“When we met, showing in the same exhibition, I was struck by the resonance of this ancient timber and his sensitive response to it.”
With each piece of his work he is influenced by the form and history of the timber he is using, respecting the natural beauty of its form. These pieces of ancient bog oak, found in Conington Fen in Cambridgeshire were dated by the Bristol Dendrochronology unit. By georeferencing the location they have estimated the oak to be around 5000 years old.
“For this collaboration I gave him two globes, and a very loose idea, and he responded by pairing these
small porcelain spheres with several unique pieces of ancient timber, sculpting each into forms that simultaneously present and protect these miniature worlds.
In response to each of these bog oak forms, be it the unique grain patterns or inlaid sycamore lines, I developed special editions. Each globe has been detailed by adding lustres or deep bronze inlay, and a new Tectonic Plates Globe was also created to sit on the top of the strata-like growth rings revealed in the sliced sectional base.”
The Blue Meridians globe refers to the principle method of mapping, wayfinding and georeferencing. The Mapping Earth series alludes to hydrogeomorphology, and the charting of weather patterns, changes in climate, tidal influence of the moon, and the ocean tides that preserved this timber in the peat fens for five millenia.
Works in order of appearance
(left to right, including previous spread):
Mapping Earth Globe
Ancient Bog Oak Pebble Base
Porcelain, 2024
Globe 7.5 cm, Scale 1:169 893 333
4.5 x 16 x 13cm, Variable Edition Number 1
Miniature Land and Sea Globe
Ancient Bog Oak Burr
Porcelain, 2024
Globe 5.5 cm, Scale 1:23 672 727
5.5 x 24 x 7.5 cm, Unique Piece
Tectonic Plates Globe
Ancient Bog Oak Section Base
Porcelain, 2024
Globe 7.5 cm, Scale 1:169 893 333
5x5 x 24 x 7.5 cm, Edition of 5
Lunar Globe Globe
Ancient Bog Oak Pebble Base
Porcelain, 2024
Globe 7.5 cm, Scale 1:46 320 000
4.5 x 16 x 13 cm, Edition of 5
Land and Sea Globe
Ancient Bog Oak Section Base
Porcelain, 2024
Globe 7.5 cm, Scale 1:169 893 333
5.5 x 24 x 7.5 cm, Edition of 5
Perpetual Ocean Western Hemisphere
Porcelain, 2024
35 x 5 cm
Open Variable Edition, Number 1
This exhibition marks the beginning of a personal research project into the manuscript maps in The Royal Geographical Society Collection. Drawn to the objects that reveal the human hand charting interpretations of place, I am fascinated by the liminal traces of geographical experience in the overlap of explorer, surveyor, cartographer and viewer.
The drafts, sketches, traces of erasure on these archive objects, often drawn in situ, reveal the edit and thought process of the cartographer, and the challenge of conveying entire landscapes condensed into a series of lines and marks. These maps in the archive record a personal experience of place at a particular point in time, and an evolution in the craft of cartography.
Perpetual Ocean is the first piece made in response to viewing some of these archival documents, and this artwork in particular was inspired by the Tien Pau 17th Century porcelain map of Japan. The spiral stylisation of the seas reminded me of the visualisation of ocean surface currents published by Nasa Goddard in 2012.
Repeatedly watching this 20 minute film, I drew onto the unfired clay surface, at first in soft pencil, then, as my feel for the movement of the major ocean currents emerged, I drew into the surface of the porcelain with a fine needle. This is the first piece made in this way and captures my visceral response to the fluid cartographicfilm.
Exhibited with TAG Fine Arts at the London Art Fair 2025
Sources: Left - Still from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Visualization Video “Perpetual Ocean” (2012). Right - Tien Pau Japanese plate (17th century) from The Royal Geographical Society Collection. Reproduced with kind permission from The Royal Geographical Society. Photograph by LoraineRutt(2024).
Back Projections
A. Mercator
B. Plate Carrée
C. Sinusoidal
Porcelain, inlay, glaze, 2024
Scale 1: 169 893 333
A. 21 x 7.5 cm, B. 10 x 7.5 cm, C. 8 x 9 x 5 cm
Open variable editions 1, 1 and 2, and 1
Taking the starting point as an equator of equal length, these vessels compare world map projections when folded back into threedimensional objects. In this set, the scale is the same as the 7.5cm pocket globe.
A.
Pocket Globes
When pocket globes were first made in 1600’s a global circumnavigation could take two years. These miniature worlds, used to share stories of travel, trades, investments and exploits, also commemorated expeditions, reflecting the Early Modern thirst for geographical knowledge.
The International Space Station now orbits Earth every 90 minutes; our view of the world has expanded beyond its surface, and our access to geography is instantaneous, with a global map in our mobile phones. These porcelain pocket globes have been inspired by both of these references.
The form of these 21st century porcelain globes is derived from satellite data, with the finer handdrawn details of coasts, islands and graticule scribed into an exaggerated, but cartographically accurate relief. They are intended as aide memoirs, a tool for the sharing of stories of travel, stories of familial connection to place, of personal adventures, and have also been commissioned as declarations of endearment.
The weight, and the diamond-polished surface of the porcelain have the familiarity of a pebble plucked from a beach, offering a tangible and lyrical connection to Earth.
Worksinorderofappearance(lefttoright):
Miniature Solid Ground Globe
English Cherry Pocket Case
Porcelain,2023.
Globe5.5cm,Scale1:231672727
Case7cm,OpenVariableEdition
Land and Sea Globe
English Oak Pocket Case
Porcelain, 2024. Case lined with a hand-painted celestialchart.Globe7.5cm,Scale1:169893333, Case9.5cm,OpenVariableEdition
Land and Sea Globe Travel Box
Porcelain, 2018. Case lined with a hand-painted celestialchart.Globe7.5cm,Scale1:169893333
Box12x10x10cm,OpenVariableEdition
Exhibited with TAG Fine Arts
CONTACT
For availability of works and pricing, or to arrange a commission, please contact TAG Fine Arts at info@tagfinearts.com
Artworks are also available to purchase using the interest-free Own Art scheme.
CREDITS
Photography / Imagery by:
Sylvain Deleu sylvaindeleu.com
cover image, p12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 44
Gareth Sambidge garethsambidge.com p6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Ian Skelton ianskeltonphotography.com inside cover, p45
Sarah Weal sarahweal.com p2, 3, 4, 5, 46
All other photographs by the artist, Loraine Rutt.
Websites tagfinearts.com
Instagram @tagfinearts X (Twitter) @TAGFineArts
Introductionwrittenby: Veronica Simpson
Collaborationswith: Claire Seldon, Steer steergroup.com Tom Aylwin contourboxes.co.uk Adrian Swinstead adrianswinstead.com
Bookdesignby: Mary Alice Beal mondayalicebeal@gmail.com
Gallery representation: TAG Fine Arts, London tagfinearts.com
© Loraine Rutt, 2024
