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 child, Jon loved drawing and messing about with mud. He and his brother and friends spent many joyful years roaming and exploring on the waste ground of empty housing plots. The exposed seams of soft yellow clay they discovered was perfect for making ‘weapons’ - squashed balls of clay on the ends of sticks. Although childhood has long passed, the activity has informed and inspired his approach to ceramic practice and his educational/community engagement work.
Having enjoyed making from a young age, Jo completed a degree in jewellery and silversmithing at Edinburgh College of Art before embarking on a career in retail management. It wasn’t until her children started school that she enrolled in a pottery course, where what had begun as a hobby quickly became an obsession.
Jo works from her home studio in Fife, producing wheel-thrown and hand-built ceramics decorated using the sgraffito technique. Her inspiration comes from two distinct strands: nature - particularly wild plants - and mid-century architecture and pattern. The botanical pieces celebrate weeds that are often overlooked or disdained, allowing their architectural beauty to shine, while the geometric designs explore a detailed interplay of pattern and form, resulting in complex, graphic surfaces.
Jo works from her home studio in Fife, producing wheel-thrown and hand-built ceramics decorated using the sgraffito technique. Her inspiration comes from two distinct strands: nature - particularly wild plants, and mid-century architecture and pattern. The botanical pieces celebrate weeds that are often overlooked or disdained, allowing their architectural beauty to shine, while the geometric designs explore a detailed interplay of pattern and form, resulting in complex, graphic surfaces.
Gilles makes a variety of functional and one –off thrown stoneware pieces. His forms are freely manipulated on the potter’s wheel, some are altered and joined to construct taller larger pieces, other have incised marks applied to the soft clay revealing a subtle and tactile quality to the work, carrying a sense of captured sculptural movement.
Jane Hamlyn's life as a full-time professional potter began in 1975. She chose to work in salt-glaze, an unpredictable technique with a short history and undiscovered potential.
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.
Tom makes pottery for use at the table, in the kitchen, and around the home, inspired by the ceremony of eating and drinking. He is continually fascinated by the tension between form and function, using glazes as ‘clothing’ to dress and emphasise strong silhouettes. This approach originates in his studies under Steve Sheridan as a schoolboy and his enduring admiration for makers including Richard Batterham, David Leach, and Gwyn Hanssen Pigott.
