Magdalene Odundo

Dame Magdalene Anyango Namakhiya Odundo DBE (b. 1950, Nairobi, Kenya) is a Kenyan-British studio potter renowned for her hand-built, coiled ceramic vessels that bridge tradition, form, and memory. Her work merges influences from African pottery traditions, ancient vessel forms (like Greek and Native American), and her own sensibility for the human body in shape and surface. Each vessel is crafted slowly, burnished to a luminous finish and often fired multiple times to achieve glowing terracotta or deep, reduction blacks. Her pieces are widely recognized as both ancient-feeling and modern.