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.
David had no artistic or ceramic history in his family, nor did he formally study ceramics. He discovered ceramics by accident as an element in his teaching degree whilst at Bretton Hall in the late 1960s. Similarly, his work in raku was appropriately the result of a serendipitous encounter with an American raku potter in the mid-1970s. David states that due to persistence, natural talent and support from colleagues, friends, and family, especially his wife Jan, over the past 40 years he has established himself as a leading international practitioner in raku ceramics.
Award-winning artist, Ashraf Hanna works with the vessel to explore relations between profile, line, and space. Using a process of handbuilding, and working with colour and texture, Hanna examines the juxtaposition of sharp lines and soft curves.
Doug works in red earthenware clay, the pots simply decorated, with appliqué decoration or sgraffito, using a basic palette of traditional slips that are made from natural raw materials. The majority of his pots are thrown on the wheel with some press moulded dishes, decorated with freely trailed lines.
Chris Keenan has been making pots for almost twenty-five years. Thrown and turned by hand on the wheel using Limoges porcelain, he specialises in pieces for interior spaces – designed for functional use and for decoration.
Maria's early creative training and work was in graphic design at a time when the industry was changing from drawing boards to computers. As her work became more computer based she realised she missed using her hands and making things, that realisation led to ceramics, initially experimenting in a shed in her garden, but later to an MA in ceramic design at Bath Spa University. Since graduating she has exhibited nationally and internationally and now works from her studio in Frome.
Porcelain, with its fine texture, purity and whiteness, allows Peter to explore relationships between form and surface in a way that is more rewarding than with any other clay. Wheel-thrown vessel forms offer infinite opportunities for subtle variations, but his particular concern, while attempting to achieve harmony and balance in the work, is to express his feelings for the natural world through the positive radiation of light and colour.
