Contemporary approaches to clay are celebrated in a new solo exhibition by William Cobbing at The Burton at Bideford this autumn.
Rooted in sculpture, William’s work encompasses a wide range of media including video, performance and installation. Clay is a central material in his practice, both in its raw and fired form.
‘Despised mud, I love you’ is William’s first solo exhibition in the South West of England, bringing together sculpture and video work that uses clay to explore human interaction and emotional states. Installed alongside The Burton’s ceramic collections, it draws attention to the timeless, primitive qualities of clay that have made it a vital material for individual expression over thousands of years.
The exhibition includes a series of William’s ‘Kiln Devil’ ceramic figures, inspired by the small talisman traditionally believed to keep pottery safe from cracking or explosions during the firing process. A larger sculpture references the Japanese folklore spirit Tenome, the ghost of a blind man who was reborn with eyes on the palm of each hand.
Alongside fired objects, video performances made using raw clay subvert our expectations of the material’s possibilities. In William’s ‘Social Substance’ work figures appear to be caught in a state of metamorphosis, connected by clay appendices that blur the boundary between body and earth. Filmed on the Cornish coast, two works from the ‘Inner Horizon’ series feature the artist wearing a hand-sculpted clay head with a mirrored surface, creating a contemplative performance with the geological landscape around him.
The title of this exhibition is a quote from the poem ‘Unfinished Ode to Mud’ by the French poet Francis Ponge (1899-1988). It speaks to William’s interest in clay as a transgressive material, which can provoke conflicting feelings of attraction and repulsion in its wet, muddy, unformed state.
The exhibition is accompanied by a live performance and book launch for the artist’s first major monograph ‘William Cobbing: Social Substance’, taking place on Saturday 8 November 2025.
Harriet Cooper, Director of The Burton at Bideford, said:
“William Cobbing is one of the most exciting artists working with clay today and The Burton are delighted to present his work in Devon for the first time. His use of performance, sculpture and video challenges traditional expectations of what a ceramics practice might be, revealing the transgressive nature of clay and its ability to explore psychological states. The Burton has one of the leading ceramics collections in the South West and bringing contemporary artists into conversation with it is vital to our mission of using art to understand our past, present and future.”
‘William Cobbing: Despised mud, I love you’ runs from 11 October until 10 January at The Burton at Bideford, EX39 2QQ. Free entry. More details on accompanying events
Artist Biography
William Cobbing studied sculpture at Central St Martins, De Ateliers, and a PhD at Middlesex University.
Recent solo exhibitions include Inner Horizon at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, USA; Janus Seasons at Selfridges, London, UK; and Social Substance at Airspace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, UK.
His work has been exhibited in group exhibitions internationally and is represented in collections including the Arts Council Collection, the Wellcome Trust and Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University. In 2021 he was awarded a residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre in The Netherlands and was awarded the Norma Lipman Artist Residency at Newcastle University in 2013.
