In October 2024, Serena attended a wood firing residency  at Oxford University Kilns. Her intention was to explore how the air flow and movement within the kiln can be read as a form of gestural expression. Yet, through the physical labour of firing and discovery of work upon packing, these works resembled the unpredictable dialogue between fire, clay, and material memory, and how surfaces evolved through heat. 

In the kiln, the element of the unexpected dominates: layered patterns that were carefully built were obscured, melted away, and then reemerged within each vessel’s surface. Gnarly granularity, flashes of atmospheric glazing, and textures born of chance. These surfaces, combined with gestural manipulation and mark-making, form a vocabulary she continues to explore.

Using both familiar and new clays, Serena placed her inlaid studies in different areas of the anagama to observe their response. The results offer surfaces of exposed clay punctuated by spontaneous atmospheric effects. Through these Ruptured Flow works, gesture extends beyond the body into the elemental forces of fire, producing surfaces that carry both action and chance.