Contemporary Ceramics gallery and shop exhibits the greatest collectable names in British ceramics along with the most up and coming artists of today. Our distinguished makers are all carefully selected members of the Craft Potters Association.
All of our makers are members of the Craft Potters Association and each of them have a story to tell.
Ian was born in Birmingham - a city famous in its past for guns, cars, motorbikes and jewellery: a city of makers. He studied ceramics at the Central School of Art, London. His teachers included Gordon Baldwin and Dan Arbeid who encouraged skills and making of all types, from hand-building to industrial techniques as possible means of artistic expression. Ian’s own teaching and exhibiting in the UK, Europe and the Far East has provided opportunities to produce work as a response to different places and cultures.
Graham’s interest in ceramics began at York School of Art in the 1960s and continued at Cardiff College of Art, graduating from there in 1971.He later worked at both colleges as a ceramics technician and having retired from Cardiff (now Cardiff Metropolitan University) in 2009, Graham established a workshop in Gloucestershire.
Julian first made a coil pot at school in 1968 and was immediately hooked - and very well supported by teacher David Buchanan to pursue his passion in exploring what could be made by hand-building with clay. Other than what he was empowered to discover at school, he had no formal training.
Ben’s work is mainly hand-built, wheel-thrown and altered using stoneware, porcelain, and high fired earthenware clays. Forms seek to utilise and respond to the malleability of the material with work being altered and assembled while still wet.
The majority of his work relies exclusively on the interaction between ash, clay and fire achieved through extended wood firings in an anagama type kiln. However, recent pieces are exploring the potentials of using earthenware clays to bring out the character and attitude in the work.
Ant first encountered pottery in primary school. His teacher, Mr Wright introduced him to clay and planted the beginnings of a lifelong passion. He started out as a science teacher but gave up teaching in his late twenties after years of evening classes and moved to Lincolnshire to set up his own pottery workshop.
Birgit Pohl grew up in Germany and porcelain objects in her family home always held a particular fascination. After moving to London, a chance visit to a potter’s studio first opened her eyes to the possibilities of working with porcelain. She learned how to throw on the wheel initially at evening classes and went on to study at Clay College, Stoke-on-Trent.
