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.
Helen Beard is a potter and illustrator and a people watcher at heart. She studied at the Edinburgh College of Art. After graduating, Helen was an apprentice with Edmund de Waal in London. She set up her own studio in 2004 in the London borough of Islington where she makes, draws, designs and sometimes teaches.
Ian’s work is a contemporary interpretation of country pottery. His salt glazed domestic ware focuses on line, surface and balance. He likes to emphasise tactility and evidence of the maker’s hand, highlighting the subtle marks and fingerprints from handling and attachments. This, combined with clean lines make his work approachable and usable, while giving the work extra durability that comes from the firing process.
Ben’s work is mainly hand-built, wheel-thrown and altered using stoneware, porcelain, and high fired earthenware clays. Forms seek to utilise and respond to the malleability of the material with work being altered and assembled while still wet.
The majority of his work relies exclusively on the interaction between ash, clay and fire achieved through extended wood firings in an anagama type kiln. However, recent pieces are exploring the potentials of using earthenware clays to bring out the character and attitude in the work.
Marina was born in Toulon in the South of France and spent part of her childhood in the rich coastal plains of Gabon, before moving to Alsace near the Vosges mountains and then to England. Her immersion in different landscapes and cultures fostered a sense of curiosity towards the transience of existence, which continues to inform her creative practice. She studied sculpture at Falmouth School of Art and later did a two-year
City and Guilds in ceramics in Nottingham.
Ant first encountered pottery in primary school. His teacher, Mr Wright introduced him to clay and planted the beginnings of a lifelong passion. He started out as a science teacher but gave up teaching in his late twenties after years of evening classes and moved to Lincolnshire to set up his own pottery workshop.
Tim works from his studio/gallery and garden in an East Devon village, making and curating exhibitions and occasionally writing. It’s a combination of the immersion in his local environment with the many invitations to exhibit/lecture around the world that has influenced his work for well over forty years. Some of Tim’s favourite adventures have been in China, India, Australia - and many times in Japan, which has reconnected him with his family history in that country, which stretches back almost 150 years.
