Janice Movson is a South African born artist who grew up under Apartheid. She has her BFA in Painting and Art History and her MFA in Painting. Her original medium was large oil-painted canvasses, both figurative and abstract. As she began to explore clay, she drew upon the visually rich, culturally diverse, and politically evolving world in which she came of age, glazing personally meaningful symbols and drawings onto her sculpted figures. Through these ceramic figures, as well as her work on paper, she explores the immigrant’s sense of being displaced, of losing home. Her hand-built vessels reflect a different instinct: She is less invested in imbuing these pieces with power or story and tries instead to feel her way into the clay. While she moves freely from abstract to figurative to utilitarian art, crafting pots, tableware, perfume containers, and chains as well as her sculpted pieces, she is also now returning to her oil-painting roots. Janice currently lives in Harlem and sculpts at Greenwich House Pottery Studio.