Geometric Balance unveils a collaborative dialogue between Emma Oughtibridge and Emily Stubbs, where ceramics and painting cross boundaries between surface and structure. Through an interplay of texture, mark, colour, and form, their works engage in a dynamic exchange that redefines the spatial and material language of both disciplines.
About Emma Oughtibridge
Emma’s practice centres on non-representational painting. Materiality is central: the application of paint, its texture, and the tools employed are integral to the work’s development. She constructs layered compositions in oil, wax, and grit, exploring the dynamic interplay between rhythm and structure. Working across multiple canvases over extended periods, she incrementally builds surfaces that articulate a distinctive visual language. Shapes emerge and disappear, edges fading in and out.
After completing an Art Foundation In Hastings, gaining a distinction in drawing, she went on to undertake a BA (Hons) in Fine Art and English Literature at De Montfort University, and a PGCE in Art & Design at the University of Brighton. With over 26 years’ experience teaching A-level Art & Design, including life drawing, she has spent the past decade at Rochdale Sixth Form College. She has led adult art classes and offers one-to-one tuition.
Emma has exhibited extensively and was featured artist at Holmfirth Artweek 2025. She works from a converted stable studio, Pike Lowe Studio and Gallery, on Windmill Lane in Cumberworth.
About Emily Stubbs
Expanding from collaged two-dimensional works, the vessel is deconstructed and reassembled through a process of geometric balance. Clay slabs are cut, shifted, and rejoined, forming exaggerated overhangs and angular intersections that create fragmented yet deliberate structures. Each piece explores the tension between instability and harmony, where form is carefully recalibrated through its reconstructed planes. A focused use of colour, combined with intuitive brushwork and layered mark-making, guides the eye across each surface, reinforcing the interplay between structure, movement, and balance.
Emily Stubbs is a contemporary British ceramicist based in York, North Yorkshire.
Graduating with a BA(Hons) in Ceramics from University of Wales, Cardiff (UWIC) in 2007, Emily went on to co-found PICA Studios; an artist led studio collective of 23 artists, makers, writers and thinkers set within an 18th century printworks in the centre of historic York. Influenced by ceramicists and artists such as Gordon Baldwin, Betty Woodman and Patrick Heron, Emily’s work has always been concerned with exploring the relationship between colour, form and texture. Emily exhibits her contemporary ceramics in exhibitions, events and galleries around the UK.
We would love to invite you to join us for the preview on Saturday 23rd May, 2pm onwards.
Regular Gallery opening hours:
Mon 11–3 | Wed 1-3 | Thurs 1–3 | Sat 11–1
other times by appointment
Find us - Long Wall Gallery entrance - originate.twisty.vase