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.
Jane is a self-taught ceramicist and began coiling and smoke firing over 30 years ago. She worked for many years as a lecturer in art specialising in ceramics and finds inspiration in neolithic landscapes and artefact. Living on the Somerset/ Wiltshire border provides rich source material.
The meditative simplicity of coiling is a fundamental part of her practice. Jane is fascinated by the universality of clay and how it lies at the heart of the human experience. She travelled widely in Africa researching the spiritual use of clay and visiting remote pottery communities, running workshops in the Namibia and Kalahari deserts with funding from the British Council.
Sue’s multidisciplinary conceptual practice comprises stand-alone pieces, installation, film and tableware, collectively defined by a distinct language. Current work is rooted in traditional techniques, thrown forms made on the wheel, firing in real flame kilns and using natural wood ash deposits and the reduction flame to add unpredictable embellishment.
With her figures Sally creates personalities that share a sense of warmth and calm. Drawing from early memories of family gatherings spilling across summer lawns; the quiet intimacy of a confidence shared between sisters; expressions of visual anecdotes carefully collected and stored to later emerge as a figure. The everyday moments of human interaction being elevated from the ordinary into something special.
All Francis' work is thrown using stoneware clays and is reduction fired, increasingly turning to salt glaze for his desired surface. Functional pots are his main concern, pots made for use in daily life, often giving a nod towards other historical objects, not necessarily made of clay, featuring utilitarian components now ultimately defunct but repurposed as decoration. He uses a muted palette of glazes and seeks a balance between looseness and definition in his forms.
Before Tony established his own studio in 1988, he studied ceramics and then worked in the ceramic industry in Stoke on Trent (including as a designer for Coalport China, part of Wedgwood). His background in the industry gave him a broad appreciation of ceramics and techniques. He is interested in the art ware produced by Royal Doulton in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but also fascinated by the work of French potters such as Clement Massier.
Since graduating from the celebrated Harrow Ceramics course in 1994, Daniel Smith has worked from the same London studio he helped establish. This continuity is reflected in his work with a commitment to exploring a family of useful forms - plates, bowls, cups, jugs, vases.
