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.
Sue originally trained as a sculptor at Saint Martin’s School of Art in London gaining a degree in Fine Art (Sculpture). First working in wood and metal, she discovered clay in the late nineties.
A chance encounter with a South African potter led to Sue’s fascination with burnished and smoked African and South American pots. Then in 1997, she attended a transformative course in Greece run by ceramic artist Alan Bain. There she began hand-building pots, working with terra sigillata slips, acquiring burnishing skills, and being introduced to pit firing.
Fascinated by process and enhancing a technique associated with mass production, she explores multi-layered slipcasting to create unique objects. These take the form of individual pieces and collections of curated works, which blur the boundaries between the usable and the purely decorative. With a minimal aesthetic, considered forms and refined colour palette, the work is highly tactile and the considered simplicity gradually draws attention to the subtle details.
As a child, Jon loved drawing and messing about with mud. He and his brother and friends spent many joyful years roaming and exploring on the waste ground of empty housing plots. The exposed seams of soft yellow clay they discovered was perfect for making ‘weapons’ - squashed balls of clay on the ends of sticks. Although childhood has long passed, the activity has informed and inspired his approach to ceramic practice and his educational/community engagement work.
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.
Juliet Macleod makes wheel-thrown porcelain that imparts an evocative exploration of the Scottish coast. Using a distillation of drawings and photographs made over many years, she creates contemplative pieces which hope to engage the viewer and spark their own memories.
As a rebellious schoolgirl, Tina always knew that she would go to art college as she absented herself from her maths lessons to go to exhibitions. In 1974, she commenced her BA in Ceramics at Bristol Polytechnic with a strong 2D portfolio but hardly any experience of working with clay and she found it challenging. Nevertheless, she was drawn to it because it was the only material which was so malleable, human, primal, intimate, flexible, fundamental, and could be adapted to suit all personalities.
