Phoebe Collings-James (b.1987 London, UK) is a London-based artist working mainly in ceramics and sound installations. Using sgraffito techniques, Collings-James’ sculptures contain a symbolic language distinctive to their practice. Using oxide colours, tin glazes and hand carved roulettes that are rolled across the clay’s surface, they create repeat patterns and words across the surface of the artworks. Within their work, they treat clay as a form of language referencing cuneiform clay tablets of Babylonian and Sumerien origin, through which Collings-James forms a direct link to the earliest known forms of communication, providing another route for thinking about linguistics. Through the material itself, along with the processes and modifications, Collings-James questions euro-centric modes of knowledge building and epistemologies. Recent solo exhibitions include In Practice, SculptureCenter, New York, US (2024); bun babylon; aheretics anthology, Arcadia Missa, London, UK (2023); A Scratch! A Scratch!, Camden Art Centre, London, UK (2021); Relative Strength, Arcadia Missa, London, UK (2018), Expensive Shit, 315 Gallery, New York, US (2017).