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.
As a rebellious schoolgirl, Tina always knew that she would go to art college as she absented herself from her maths lessons to go to exhibitions. In 1974, she commenced her BA in Ceramics at Bristol Polytechnic with a strong 2D portfolio but hardly any experience of working with clay and she found it challenging. Nevertheless, she was drawn to it because it was the only material which was so malleable, human, primal, intimate, flexible, fundamental, and could be adapted to suit all personalities.
Hyejeong Kim’s work is rooted in the history of Chinese, Korean and Japanese ceramics yet influenced by modern ceramics of the United Kingdom.
Jude undertook a foundation course at Somerset College of Art & Design, then gained a Dip. AD at Gloucester College of Art & Design in Fine Art (Sculpture with Painting). At art school, Jude worked mainly in bronze. She married John Jelfs in 1972 and became a potter. Jude and John live and work at the Cotswold Pottery, located in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, UK.
Annabel was born in Germany and spent several years of her childhood in Egypt before coming to England in 1956. She discovered clay at Farnham Art School on Saturday morning classes in the early 1960s. After leaving school in 1967, she attended Winchester Art School, where she was introduced to conceptual art and concrete poetry, and then Croydon College of Art. She went on to gain a BA(Hons) in Sociology and a PhD in Lesbian History at Essex University, then introduced and taught Lesbian Studies at Birkbeck College for two years. In her early 40s, she returned to her first love of clay, as one of the initial students on the City Lit Ceramics Diploma course in 1989.
Akiko Hirai produces both practical and decorative ceramic ware that is held in private collections and museums worldwide. Her Japanese background and aesthetics strongly influence her ceramic work while her pieces are also perfectly rooted in contemporary designs.
David read philosophy and literature at Warwick University. Realising the lack of jobs as a philosopher, he became a potter and taught part-time in the ceramics department at Wolverhampton University for thirty years. This allowed him the space in which to continue with his personal practice. He was awarded a PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2016. David used the inquiry within his thesis to examine the question of how he could employ the language of materiality, making, and firing (particularly raku) to critically focus on issues of personal identity.
