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.
Making in her hometown of Stoke-on-Trent, Laura draws from the creative heritage and ambition of the pioneering potters who made the city famous. Her contemporary forms echo the grandeur of 18th century ceramics, she has long admired. Thrown in porcelain, each piece is a unique ‘sketch’ in clay, carefully turned and refined to reveal the precise form.
All bowls Sara Moorhouse makes are thrown on a wheel using white stoneware clay or porcelain. The banded bowls are then turned and bisque fired before being returned to the wheel and hand painted with underglaze colour. The Colourblock series are turned and then the lines drawn on using a laser level, which are then taped and hand painted. The white porcelain bowls are handed carved either on or off the wheel, depending on the arrangement.
In 2014, Jack and his late wife and fellow ceramicist built a 3D ceramic printer, there being no such printers available at the time. Together they began making 3D printed ceramics. Within six years, Jack re-thought his design ideas, formulated a workable clay mix, and developed his skill. His designs combine hand-drawn elements with mathematical curves and semi-random 'noise'. He is interested in nature's growth processes which often build up layer by layer like a 3D print. Random variations were introduced by using algorithms that were developed for animated films to give the appearance of flames, hair or vegetation.
All Francis' work is thrown using stoneware clays and is reduction fired, increasingly turning to salt glaze for his desired surface. Functional pots are his main concern, pots made for use in daily life, often giving a nod towards other historical objects, not necessarily made of clay, featuring utilitarian components now ultimately defunct but repurposed as decoration. He uses a muted palette of glazes and seeks a balance between looseness and definition in his forms.
Having practiced as a ceramic artist since 2001, Lowri predominantly creates decorative bone china tableware from her studio in Cardiff.
Lowri's early work was very much about documenting a way of life that was disappearing. She deliberately uses industrial processes to create her work, but on a very small scale. It is the same process that was used to make most of the ceramics that adorned her Nain’s home (grandmother).
Claire creates decorative smoke-fired pots. She chooses to use porcelain due to its strong resistance to wild temperature changes during the smoke-firing process. Her pots are not functional nor suitable for holding water due to the porous quality of the unglazed burnished clay which is necessary for smoke-firing.
