This solo exhibition celebrates the work of Akiko Hirai featuring her practical and decorative ceramic ware. Her Japanese cultural background and aesthetics strongly influence this collection while each piece is perfectly rooted in contemporary designs.
Akiko creates each piece using various building techniques, including throwing, coiling, and casting, she then applies several layers of slips and glazes to create the complex texture and tones for each ceramic surface. Her pieces are often fired using a reduction atmosphere in her gas kiln.
Rather than using coloured oxides to decorate her work, metal and mineral rich clays are used, alongside marginal metal and mineral content of other raw materials, creating colours that occur from the chemical reaction during her firing process. A process she compares to the ageing of many materials over a long period of time.
This solo exhibition features the work of Adam Frew, a potter based in rural Northern Ireland. Working in porcelain Adam creates thrown functional and large one-off pots with intricate, colourful, markings.
The Contemporary Ceramics Christmas Show brings together a huge selection of carefully chosen pieces by many of our most collectable artists. Choose a truly unique, hand crafted work of art and give a gift that will last forever this Christmas.
