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 Smith was once a research chemist before turning his hand to ceramics and starting a pottery in Cornwall. He aims to combine the feel of traditional earthenware with contemporary ideas. The basic form is often thrown on the wheel in a heavily grogged brown clay.
Rob was born in Doncaster in 1945. He first became interested in pottery and art whilst at school, going on to further education at Leeds College of Art. Robert then studied sculpture at Cardiff College graduating in 1968, before finishing his education with an Art Teacher Training Course at Hornsey College. Rob returned to the pottery he had enjoyed while at school and the decision to become a potter was a flash of inspiration which he has never regretted. Since making this decision in 1970, he has made countless pots, set up workshops and taught ceramics in the UK and France.
Elly graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2004. Since then, she has exhibited in numerous galleries and craft fairs. She produces work from her garden studio in Hertford.
Elly’s work is hand-built using slabs of clay with multiple slips, textural marks and impressions applied during the making process. Glaze is also applied and sometimes rubbed back, then the pieces are high fired.
Alistair studied ceramics at Bath Academy of Art and set up his first pottery studio in Gloucestershire in 1978, producing thrown reduction fired stoneware for a range of companies. While continuing with his own making he later took on the running of the studio ceramics department at The Royal Forest of Dean College and instigating a series of potters conferences.
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.
Irena Sibrijns has been a potter for over thirty years. Inspired by an avid interest in 20th century English decorative arts tradition Irena creates exquisite, and entirely unique, ornamental and functional pieces with equal enthusiasm.
