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.
Peter Beard’s work has been exhibited around the world and is represented in numerous museums, public collections and private collections in the UK and overseas. The award winning artist has a contemplative approach to making and spends much of his time sketching out ideas for new pieces.
Annabel was born in Germany and spent several years of her childhood in Egypt before coming to England in 1956. She discovered clay at Farnham Art School on Saturday morning classes in the early 1960s. After leaving school in 1967, she attended Winchester Art School, where she was introduced to conceptual art and concrete poetry, and then Croydon College of Art. She went on to gain a BA(Hons) in Sociology and a PhD in Lesbian History at Essex University, then introduced and taught Lesbian Studies at Birkbeck College for two years. In her early 40s, she returned to her first love of clay, as one of the initial students on the City Lit Ceramics Diploma course in 1989.
Emily mostly works with a red stoneware clay that fires to a rich dark brown, with iron speckles showing through the glaze. She occasionally works with porcelain as the white body is ground for wonderful bright glazes. Most of the glazes contain barium and copper, a combination which give rise to interesting matt green glazes in an electric kiln.
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.
Sean's love of slipware first began whilst attending the studio pottery course at Harrow College of Art in the late 1980s. Now 30 years and three workshops later he is still making slipware. Since 2007, after moving from London, Sean has been working in an old converted stone barn in Southern Brittany, France.
Valerie studied fashion and textiles at Brighton and Bristol art colleges. Valerie’s art is about a combination of brushstroke and knowledge of colour acquired through a lifetime of painting. Ken learned to pot with potters in Bristol and London and has had a long association with potters throughout the country in his work for the craft ceramic materials industry and kiln manufacturing.
