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.
Suzanne began working with clay while accompanying her husband during their years living in the Middle East in the 1960s and 70s. She came to make clay her home ground and something she could take with her wherever she lived.
She discovered Oribe ware – Japanese tea ceramics associated with the Kaiseki meal and tea ceremony – whose glazes and playful geometric decoration greatly influenced her aesthetic. She ultimately decided to import English porcelain clay so she would have continuity wherever she worked and for the same reasons travelled with a small electric kiln.
Jenny Southam studied Fine Art in Bristol where she developed her practice in Sculpture, gravitating towards bronze. After several years working as a sculptor and bronze-casting assistant in Gloucestershire she moved to Devon, where she embraced clay as her medium of choice. For thirty years her family, home, garden and studio has formed an integrated whole.
In his youth Peter collected (mainly damaged) Chinese Kangxi and 18th Century European porcelain, regularly visiting Portobello and Bermondsey Market at 6am. His making came later, but is influenced by the pieces he bought, studied, and has loved over the years. These pots have of course been themselves influenced by earlier ceramic, silver, and pewter forms.
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.
Lisa Hammond MBE is a soda firing potter who works at Maze Hill Pottery, Greenwich, London. She has been making pots for best part of 40 years in which time she has taught extensively and pioneered soda glaze and shino firings.
Kate creates sculptural vessels which explore the transformational nature of time on human experience. Her practice involves a continuous investigation of structure and surface, with particular emphasis on ceramic materials, fragmentation and transfiguration. Kate’s making process consists of the tearing, breaking and joining of clay to create organic forms with undulating edges, fault lines and fissures.
