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.
Duncan’s fascination with clay began as a child in his parents’ garden. The colour, smell and malleability of the earth led him to discover at school the transformation of clay by heat into a permanent object. As a teenager, Duncan was captivated by seeing his teacher throwing a pot on a kick-wheel, his bedroom posters were images of communist revolutionary heroes and 20th-century studio pottery.
Rachel Wood’s ceramics are noted for their expressive, visceral, yet calm and considered qualities. Animated and complex surfaces, swathed with layer upon layer of slip and glaze, are carefully nurtured to life and so compel the viewer to their mysterious and hidden depths.
Phil throws and hand-builds in various stoneware clays, making bowls, vases and sculptural forms. However, his main output is concentrated on small-scale porcelain and white stoneware bowls and bottles. They are exclusively hand thrown.
Lea Phillips makes a wide range high fired stoneware pottery, mostly functional plus some larger one-off pieces. All the ceramics are wheel-thrown, fired in an electric kiln and decorated with free abstract designs using vibrant colourful glazes made to her own recipes. A firm believer that oxidised firing is no barrier to interesting surfaces Lea enjoys glaze development and the challenge of combining form, colour, and pattern.
1949 – 2024
Karen began making pots in the early 70s. She completed a degree in chemistry at University College London, then worked as a computer programmer before she discovered ceramics and quickly realised that ceramics was her real vocation. As a largely self-taught ceramicist, Karen worked briefly for a production potter in Yorkshire, then moved back to London and in 1977, set up her first pottery in Hackney, East London.
With both of her parents being artists, Kerry’s childhood was surrounded by paintings, sculpture, and architecture. They had a potter friend and spent quiet hours in her studio. She went on to gain a BA Hons Ceramics at University of Westminster.
Kerry is inspired by the making process itself, using clay as a way of exploring her relationship to the world as a maker. She seeks creative strategies analogous to those found in nature such as growth, metamorphosis, and fragmentation.
