Christine Burgess-Hunt

Christine Burgess : Biography

Born 1937 – died 2018.

Christine Burgess was brought up and educated in Manchester, where she qualified in sculpture and ceramics at Manchester College of Art. She exhibited widely from the late 1970s onwards, with work in private and public collections in the UK and Europe.

She moved from Manchester to Wiltshire in the early 1960s to raise a family and start her career, and then to Oxford in 1984, where she established her own ceramic studio. She taught at several art schools and institutions, including the Sunningwell School of Art and Design from 1986 to 2008. She initially taught ceramics and sculpture, then later drawing and painting and was a well-respected artist and teacher.

She exhibited in London (Mall galleries and St Martins), Bristol : Royal West of England Open, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, also galleries in Bath, Oxford and Birmingham. Her work is also in private collections in Ireland, France, Holland, Sweden, Japan and the USA.

Christine’s distinctive ceramic sculpture is figuratively based, celebrating the human form and often incorporating allegory and has been described as an exploration of the human condition.

Christine was Chair of the Oxford Arts Society from 1994 – 1999 and was an active member of the Oxford Artists Group, and the Oxfordshire Craft Guild.

As well as being an artist and teacher, she also campaigned for improved public exhibition space in the Oxfordshire area and was a co-ordinator of the Oxford Confederation of Artists and Makers and an active member of the Oxford Castle Development group from its inception.

In her later years she became an active supporter of the Turrill Sculpture Gardens, Oxford until illness caused her to cease artistic activity shortly before her death in 2018.