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.
John has been making stoneware pottery in the North Lancashire village of Yealand Redmayne for forty years. The firing process requires a temperature of 1320c, and a smoky/reducing atmosphere in the kiln, which results in rich glaze colours and exciting unpredictable effects on the pots. Most of the pots are classically simple functional shapes, thrown on the wheel, but John occasionally alters the freshly thrown pots to produce one of the signature forms for which he is well known.
“Chivers is an artist potter whose work shines with a flowing lyricism in which decoration is intrinsically linked to form but is equally linked to natural random processes of image formation of the kind favoured by the American Abstract Expressionists and the European ‘matter’ painters.” Peter Davies.
The passage of time and change observed in urban and rural landscapes has always been central to the themes Dennis explores in his work. The process of archaeology and its concern with time and layers has also greatly influenced the way in which he expresses his ideas. Architectural fragments, marks on the landscape, multi-layered and over painted surfaces, have all influenced the way he works in clay.
Jessica’s latest collection of porcelain plates showcases the importance of convivial connections between ceramics, food and community, which is at the heart of her practice. It was born from a need for playful experimentation, deftly embodying the freedom of making, unbounded by rules or functional constraints.
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.
Being brought up close to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park has been a gift and an education to James from a very young age. The aesthetic of Barbara Hepworth’s work is almost ingrained in him, as though it were the basis of his consciousness of texture, proportion, line and form. After completing a foundation course at Dewsbury Art College, James spent two weeks in the ceramics department working with renowned Raku Ceramist David Roberts. He was immediately drawn to clay as a material. Later, upon graduation from Loughborough and then the Royal College of Art in 2001, James set up a studio in London for several years before returning to his native Yorkshire in 2005.
