About
Biography
Bec Wonders (b. Sweden) is a London-based ceramic artist and illustrator whose interdisciplinary practice explores the relationship between material culture and visual storytelling. Drawing on European folk art and vernacular traditions, her intricately illustrated ceramics reinterpret folklore and inherited belief systems through dark humour and historical imagery. Her work combines traditional craft techniques with a distinctive graphic sensibility informed by her background in feminist art history.
Wonders has undertaken multiple artist residencies, including at Clay Garden in Twickenham and Earthworks Ceramic Studios in London. Her work has been exhibited at Broad Street Gallery and Green & Stone Gallery, and she has received recognition through art and illustration competitions, including winning the All Points East Illustration Competition 2026. She was also selected for the New Platform Art Development Programme. Alongside her studio practice, she teaches ceramics and leads workshops in sgraffito illustration, sharing her approach to narrative decoration and traditional craft.
Her artistic practice is informed by an extensive background in historical research. Wonders earned a PhD in Feminist Print History from the Glasgow School of Art (2021) and subsequently held a Research Associate position in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford. She has taught and lectured at institutions including Tate Britain and University College London, and her research has appeared in academic journals and edited collections.
Wonders is the founder of the independent feminist digital archive Frauenkultur and co-founder of the Vancouver Women's Library. Her illustration commissions include work for UN Women, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the European Network of Migrant Women. Working multilingually in English, German and Swedish, she continues to develop an independent artistic practice that brings historical inquiry into dialogue with contemporary craft.
Artist Statement
Drawing on years spent working with archives and historical collections, I create ceramics and illustrations inspired by folklore, decorative arts and overlooked histories for people who believe the objects we live with shape the way we remember and imagine the world around us.
Before becoming an artist, I spent nearly a decade as an academic following paper trails, tracing lives preserved in letters, pamphlets and ephemeral printed matter. Handling these materials made history feel physical: to unfold a letter is to repeat a gesture last performed by someone decades before.
This way of thinking eventually led me to ceramics and illustration. If archives preserve the stories that came before us, perhaps new objects can carry something forwards. Clay, like paper, keeps a record of information and memory. My creative practice has become another kind of archive, gathering forgotten superstitions and decorative traditions from the margins of history and giving them another life in objects made to outlast me.
CV
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Botanical Illustrations
No. 35 Gallery | 2026Folklore, Myths & Legends
The Green & Stone Gallery, London | 2026Black Shuck Festival
Broad Street Gallery, Bungay | 2026Open Studios
The Clay Garden, Twickenham | 2026All Points East Outdoor Exhibition
APE Festival | 2026Weaving Visions
Cupe, Vancouver | 2017 -
Earthworks Ceramic Studios
Artist in Residence | 2026The Clay Garden Twickenham
Artist in Residence | 2026 -
Counter Print: A Discussion About the Alternative Feminist Art Press
Tate Britain | Women in Revolt: Radical Acts, Contemporary Resonances | 2024Thinking Through the British Feminist Magazine Spare Rib
Cambridge School of Art | Fashion Communication and Branding BA | 2023Feminist Sci-Fi Drawing Workshop for East London Rape Crisis Centre
The Nia Project | Young Women & Girls Feminist Funday | 2022Difficult Sisterhood: Mediating Feminist Conflict Through Letter-Writing
Leipzig University | Feminism is a Battlefield | 2022Women’s History in Times of Crises
FiLiA Portsmouth | Conversation | 2021
• Co-presented with Dr. Natalya Vince
• Launch of co-produced podcast “Making Feminist History Visible: An International Conversation About Women’s Archives and Records” -
Frauenkultur Archive
Founder | 2020
Explore the archiveThe Vancouver Women’s Library
Co-founder | 2017 -
European Network of Migrant Women
Typeset and Design | Info Sheet on Sexual Exploitation | 2022UN Women
Head Illustrator | Youth Journey to Generation Equality Forum | 2020Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
Live Illustrator | Gender and Energy Seminar Series | 2020European Network of Migrant Women
Typeset and Design | Best Practice Principles of Assistance to Migrant Female Victims of Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation | 2020UN Global Compact
Live Illustrator | How Businesses Can support Women During Covid-19 in Africa | 2020 -
Selected Artist
New Platform Art, Professional Development Programme | 2026
Winner
All Points East Festival Illustration Competition | 2026
Winner
Ritualistic Vessels Competition Turning Earth | 2026 -
Love Your Enemy? Tracing the Transmission of Political Lesbianism from the US to the UK, 1970-80
Institute of Historical Research | Women’s History Seminar | 2024Keynote: The Women in Print Movement
ETCETERAS: Feminist Festival of Design and Publishing | 2023Dear Sister: Mediating Feminist Conflict Before the Internet
FUTURESS | Feminist Lecture Series | 2022
Watch hereComplicated Sisterhood: Negotiating Socialist Feminism in the Second Wave Periodicals Red Rag and Scarlet Women
University College London | Women’s Liberation SIG | 2021Networks of Conflict and Liberation: What Second Wave Feminist Periodicals Can Tell Us About Woman-Controlled Communication Infrastructures
University of Oxford | Women, Gender and Culture Seminar Series | 2021The Women in Print Movement: A Brief History of Feminist Publishers and Political Women’s Presses During the 1970s and 1980s
Glasgow School of Art | MLitt Art Writing | 2021Books, Periodicals and Women’s Archives: A Brief History of Second Wave Feminist Print Culture
Glasgow School of Art | Paint & Printmaking lecture series | 2021 -
Networks of Conflict and Mediation: Negotiating Socialist Feminism in the Second Wave Periodicals Red Rag and Scarlet Women
The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900-2000 | In press‘Please Say More’: Mediating Conflict Through Letter-Writing in British Second Wave Feminist Periodicals, 1970-1990
PhD Thesis | Being prepared for publication | Read HereMapping Second Wave Feminist Periodicals: Networks of Conflict and Counterpublics, 1970–1990
Art Libraries Journal | 45(3), 106-113 | Read Here -
A Space to Debate Socialist Feminism: Mediating Conflict Through Serialised Letter-Writing in Second Wave Feminist Periodicals
Polytechnic of Turin, Italy | Communication, Capitalism and Critique: Critical Media Sociology in the 21st Century | 2022Women’s Webs: Second Wave Periodicals as Feminist Networks
University of Amsterdam | The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing | 2022Feminist Publications in Movement: Developing a Model for a Feminist Publishing Circuit
The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing | Munich | 2021
Roundtable with Gail Chester, Wangui Wa Goro and Magda OldziejewskaBehind the Veil: Mapping Feminist Periodicals, 1970-1990
University of Glasgow | Art Libraries Society 50th Anniversary Conference | 2019Dear Sisters: The Role of Letters in British Second Wave Feminist Periodicals
University of Reading | Women in Publishing Conference | 2019Unravelling Feminist Periodicals
Royal College of Art | National Association of Fine Art Education Conference | 2019 -
PhD | 2021 | Glasgow School of Art
‘Please Say More’: mediating conflict through letter-writing in British second wave feminist periodicals, 1970-1990
Read Here
Supervised by Prof. Susannah Thompson, Dr. Marianne Greated, Dr. Deborah JacksonMPub | 2018 | Simon Fraser University
Counterpublics Revisited: a case study of the Vancouver Women’s Library
Supervised by Associate Professor Dr. John MaxwellBA | 2016 | University of British Columbia
Philosophy MajorBFA | 2015 | Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Visual Arts Major