POLLYANNA JOHNSON

With ceramics as her canvas, this fine artist is giving the women of art history a present-day relevance through her playful designs

- RHIANNON BATTEN

It isn't unusual for an artist to be inspired by their surroundings. For Pollyanna Johnson, however, it's not so much the local Sussex landscape that feeds her creativity, as a virtual gallery of historic portraits that she's amassed via a long fascination with history. I've always lived in really old houses and had an interest in old objects. - I'm curious about the stories they tell about people,' she says. Historic paintings of- often unnamed women are a particular focus.

At first glance, her current work looks similar to 16th- and 17thcentury delftware; cream-coloured plates, cups, and caddies, decorated with finely painted renderings of bygone women, their ruffle collars or feathered caps often picked out in blue. Look closely, though, and the traditional motifs are underscored by modern feminist messaging. Nipples are playfully tweaked, expletives are hidden within alphabet lettering, and the ugly phrases of everyday sexism are subverted as they're painted onto bisque-fired clay. What Grayson Perry might describe as 'guerilla tactics', in other words.