Jill Fanshawe Kato graduated in Painting from Chelsea School of Art, London. After a period of teaching she had the opportunity to visit Tokyo in Japan, joined the school of potter Yosei Itaka and began to study Japanese pottery. She subsequently worked with renowned potter Ryoji Koie. Returning to London in 1977, Jill established her first studio. Since then, she has lived and worked in north London. She continues to exhibit in Japan, with 46 exhibitions there, mainly at Keio Department Store in Tokyo but also in Okinawa. She has exhibited widely internationally and across the UK. Jill has recently established a studio in Devon
Irish-born Susan O’Byrne studied Co. Kilkenny before moving to Edinburgh College of Art where she achieved a Post Graduate in Ceramics in 2000. Initially studying textiles, her ceramic work shows influences from this training, showing a fascination with texture, surface pattern and decoration. The work in this exhibition features new developments in surface decoration and for the first time, the use of glaze to reference Egyptian carvings seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum. Susan lives and works in Glasgow.
Exhibition pieces will be viewable online from Thursday 12th October
Jenny Southam hand builds figurative sculptures in terracotta clay. She delights in exploring colourful gestural mark-making over their surfaces. This painterly decoration aims to echo the emotional resonance of each piece.
“When I enter the studio I am searching for that serene state of absolute absorption that making and drawing can gift us, which we all wish will, in some manner, enrich our audience.” – Jenny Southam
In a career spanning nearly 50 years, ceramicist, Sophie MacCarthy has developed a unique and distinctive personal style. Through her subtle and bold use of coloured slips, painterly brushwork, stencils and wax-resist, she evokes the colours, forms and movements of the passing seasons. Often focusing on the ground, she finds beauty in the accidental compositions created by wind-blown leaves, stalks and detritus sometimes gathered around a storm drain or scattered over concrete and tarmac, juxtaposing the vibrant colours of the natural world with the gritty textures of the urban environment.
‘She has a poetic insight into the natural world’ David Whiting
Throughout his long career Peter has always sought pathways to the development of new ideas. Often this is a slow process, but sometimes a particular event speeds things along.
Partaking of two residencies in China recently, where Peter worked in porcelain at high temperatures, led him to develop a new body of work, made alongside his existing practice to which Peter is still deeply committed.
This new exhibition represents the outcome of Peter’s working practice.
'This exhibition explores objects that express a quiet equilibrium: fragile, shifting forms that exist in a state of delicate imbalance. Their stillness is easily disturbed, as if the act of holding too tightly might cause something essential to disappear. The works reflect an interest in forms that resist perfection, remaining slightly unresolved, unsettled, and quietly alive.' Akiko Hirai
