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.
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.
Ali Tomlin creates wheel thrown porcelain. Focusing on the smooth, white surface the quality of porcelain for making clean, elegant shapes creates a canvas for her careful decoration, adding colours and marks she creates her well known range of contemporary ceramics.
Claudia trained as a painter but transferred to pots because she found the turning surface sympathetic to an unfolding visual narrative. Stories are her raw material - both her own and other people's, also fictional stories, songs, and poetry. The human, cultural, and historic associations of pottery connect particularly well to the work she does interpreting women’s histories and contemporary lives. The nature of pots is that they can break, and so can be mended. This she finds to be a compelling metaphor for both trauma and survival - the mending has an optimistic quality.
As a child, Emmanuel grew up surrounded by the traditions and perfumes of Sardinia, a land rich in marine life. Her work is influenced by her native culture with its music and folk-costumes of luxuriant materials adorned with precious jewels. She was captivated by the gentle flowing of the living creatures found in the seabed, particularly by coral and the variety of porous sponges.
After a long and varied career in design and printing, Judy changed direction and followed her passion for ceramics. At the age of sixty she enrolled for a 3D Craft and Design BA at a local college and graduated with a 1st Class (Hons). Judy went on to gain an MA at the Royal College of Art, specialising in Nerikomi and Kintsugi.
Kay Aplin graduated in 1995 from Chelsea College of Art, specialising in ceramics and glass. Since then, Kay has had a successful career as an architectural ceramist, producing a distinct range of site-specific commissions for the public realm around the UK and internationally.
