Twentytwo22

Ceramics Group Show

30th April to 15th May 2022
Gallery open Tuesday to Sunday 10-4.30pm
CLOSED MONDAY Enquiries call 07855 753431

Back by popular demand following the highly successful first show in 2020 a group of ceramicists working in a range of styles all with terrific craftsmanship at very affordable prices. Exhibitor details below.

THE CERAMICISTS

SANDRA BIDMEAD
Sandra has loved animals and nature all her life and can think of no better inspiration for her creative work. She lives on the South Downs, close to West Dean College and benefitted from being able to attend several short courses there. She has now developed her own hand-building technique and colouring methods. She mostly works with a highly grogged, but fine stoneware clay, coloured either with an oxide wash and fired to 1200, or coloured with underglaze and fired to 1085. She enjoys seeing her creatures develop their own personalities as they come into being, especially when a sense of humour becomes apparent.

 WENDY BRENAN
Wendy is a studio potter making functional, thrown and hand-built pots. She has been particularly inspired by ‘waves’ stating that the whole universe is made up from waves whether gravitational, sound, light or merely from Hayling and Southsea beaches!

 LOLA CLAEYS BOUUAERT (@lolacbceramics; www.lola-claeys-bouuaert.com)
Lola trained as an architect in Belgium and started working with clay in Beirut, Lebanon 15 years ago. She now works from her studio in the Milland Valley in West Sussex. Most of her ceramic pieces are hand-built. Some are burnished several times before bisque firing, then smoke-fired overnight in wood shavings, sawdust and other natural materials, leaving imprints of wild plants. The pieces are cleaned and polished with a protective wax. Other pieces are raku-fired. Both techniques lead to surprising and unpredictable results. Each piece is unique, tactile, retaining the scent and patina of wood smoke. 

 LIBBY DANIELS
Working from her Studio in Haslemere Libby creates beautiful hand-made, decorative and functional pottery with an emphasis on colour and pattern. Nature and coastal themes are the inspiration for the stamp impressed and painted surfaces.

NIGEL HOBBS (www.nigelhobbsceramics.co.uk)
Nigel Hobbs has been a potter for over 40 years training, initially, at Farnham Art School – now University for the Creative Arts. Whilst producing some glazed stoneware fired work, he now mainly specialises in Raku fired pieces. Raku firing is a technique, developed initially in Japan, which involves heating the work in a kiln to a temperature of around 1000˚C which melts the specifically designed glazes, after which the very hot work is taken out of the kiln and reduced in a lidded container of sawdust, or other combustible material, before quenching in water. This crazes the glaze and blackens the unglazed areas creating exciting and unpredictable results. Finishes other than glaze involve decorating burnished work with horse hair, feathers etc., creating fine random patterns.

 SUE KELLY
Sue has a background in Fine Art, but she currently works mostly in ceramics. She finds the tactile qualities of clay absorbing. It’s ability to be stretched, carved, cracked and eroded reflects her interest in the forces that create and shape our landscapes, both from natural elements and human endeavour. Sue is particularly drawn to lines and textures that define the contours of the land, but also close-up detail. She is fascinated with how patterns and textures of the small scale are reflected in the larger landscape.

 ALISSA KNIGHT (@alissaceramics)
Alissa is drawn to folk art as a springboard and, being Russian, born to highly decorative arts which tell a story. Some creatures are metaphors and some a rooted in folklore. She has a passion for colour and surface decoration on clay, playing with layering glazes, slips, under glazes and firing a vessel several times to bring out variations of colour.  She uses a variety of techniques, although hand-built pieces or vessels built on moulds are her preferred method. 

 CABBY LUXFORD (@cabbythepotter; www.cabbyluxford.com)
Cabby’s work is inspired by the untold stories behind lost and found objects. An avid mudlarker, her pieces often incorporate ‘treasures’ found on the River Thames foreshore. Her work is mainly thrown on the wheel, burnished using a smooth pebble, and then handwritten upon once the pieces have been bisque fired. She loves the questions the found pieces pose including the mystery of their origin and journey. She uses an unusual method of smoke firing that removes, retains and reveals handwritten text - no two pieces are ever the same and the words on the pots take a journey themselves through the smoke and fire, deciding to offer up their story - or not!

 JOANNA MORRIS
Joanna works in stoneware clays to produce unique functional pieces mainly for the kitchen.  She loves making everyday items and there is no better comment on her work than to hear that a mug or a bowl is much loved and used every single day.   Every piece is decorated by hand usually in muted blues and greens, and is microwave, oven and dishwasher proof.

 HEATHER MUIR (@heathermuirporcelain; www.heathermuirpottery.com)
Heather makes wheel-thrown porcelain, in her studio in Chichester, West Sussex. She focusses on making forms with simple lines using porcelain clay for its smooth texture, whiteness, and translucency. Her bottle forms, bowls and pod shapes are glazed with matt and shiny, coloured glazes and fired in an electric kiln. The coast and landscape are an influence on the surface texture and colours in her work.

 MARGARET NEWTON (margaret.ntn@btinternet.com)
Margaret makes ceramic birds and creatures. Her sculptures are given a smoke-firing. This creates a palette of black/grey/white marks achieved by burnishing the sculptures then kiln-firing them to 1000oc.  After this she paints on a coarse clay to resist the black smoke of the smoke-firing or leave areas to become black. When cool, this layer is peeled off and the marks revealed.  She also makes high-fired stoneware sculptures for indoors or outdoors. 

 LYNN NICHOLLS (@southseamudlark)
Lynn makes functional earthenware which is either thrown or slab built. She particularly enjoys exploring the surface decoration through pattern, layering of glazes, sgraffitto and loose line work. Although Lynn may work in a series, each piece is unique and the surface approached in a similar way to a painter working on a canvas. 

 CAROLINE PIGGOTT (@carolinepiggottceramics; carolinepiggottceramics.com)
Caroline creates both functional and sculptural work using stoneware and porcelain clays, more recently working on combining figurative, sculptural techniques with thrown and hand-built elements to create one off pieces. After a ceramics residency in Greece in 2021 Caroline started working in terracotta clay as well as stoneware and porcelain, and the collection you see here has pieces using each of these clays. Her colour palette often reflects seascapes with lots of blues and greens, the fluidity of the glazes offering a sense of movement that echoes both the natural world and the simple lines of her work. 

LIU QIAN (www.qianceramics.com)
Liu Qian grew up in China and now lives in the UK. She makes all her work from her home studio based in Southsea. Her ceramics are hand-thrown on a pottery wheel, and then decorated and fired in an electric kiln. Nature and Eastern aesthetics are the sources of her inspiration. 

 VASU REDDY (@vasureddyceramics; www.potsandbellies.co.uk)
Vasu Reddy has been working on capturing in clay, the textures of broken surfaces and broken dwellings. She is inspired by patterns – whether in brick walls or rock formations - which show intriguing violations. She is mainly a thrower but is venturing (with heart in mouth) into hand-building and sculpture. Much of her work reveals influences from her childhood in India. She likes the raw feel of unglazed work - and the magic of ash glazes.

 ALEC ROBERTS
Alec has been working as a potter in Southsea for the past 8 years.  He has attended a number of courses at West Dean College led by some of the best ceramicists in the country. His work is stylish and functional influenced strongly by the British studio potters of the 1960s and 1970s. Alec has visited Japan twice and worked there in five different potteries. “I want people to take hold of my pots , eat and drink from them and appreciate their form and purpose .”

 HELEN SCRIBBANS  
Helen makes hand-built vessels and sculptural pieces using a white stoneware clay. Inspiration for her work comes from the natural world but also from a shade love of dressmaking: using 2D pieces to make 3D shapes. She specialises in Raku firing, a traditional Japanese technique. Raku firing is unpredictable and difficult to control which adds to the excitement of the process. Each piece is unique as the results of the firing are not known until the piece is removed from the ashes.

 ADRIENNE SHIELDS
Adrienne Shields makes sculptures and clay works that are bright and fun. Living by the sea influences her work. Clay is coloured with slips, oxides and underglaze colours then fired to earthenware temperatures. Each piece is individually made.

 EUGENIE SMIT
Eugenie is a multidisciplinary artist.  She works in many mediums and combines some, for instance clay sculpture with wood carving.  After studying graphic design she realised that she really rather enjoyed art more but design proved useful and informs my art to a great extent.  At the moment she is focussing on sculpture and veers towards natural subjects and engineering. Her interest in car parts comes from a lightbulb moment at the end of 2018 - a realisation that she could actually race cars if she wants to, something she naively hadn’t thought possible.  Since then she has been actively teaching herself engineering, has a race licence and karts quite a bit.  She uses clay to get the realism that she likes and eventually, might design her own parts, adaptations and car shapes.  She feels very lucky to truly love what she does.  

 JOHANNA TRICKLEBANK
After completing a Diploma in ceramics at The City Lit institute in London Jo has spent the last 20 years working with this amazing material – clay. She tries to use it as an artist uses paint, to create surface qualities on vessels and wall pieces that  are inspired by nature in its most rugged form, hopefully going some way to expressing its power and beauty .

 JOANNA WAKEFIELD
One of the fundamental aspects of Joanna’s work is the human and zoomorphic form. There is a quirky, sometimes humorous element to her sculptural pieces which is often based on strong movement and shapes. Their rough austerity is also distinctive. She likes to construct pieces and push them to their limits thus coaxing them into unusual structures.

 ALISON WEAR (@alisonwearceramics;  www.alisonwearsceramics.com )
Alison Wear makes hand-built stoneware pieces inspired by nature and the world of animals and birds.  Each piece is burnished to a soft sheen and fired in a raku kiln, a burning pit or a dustbin. This low-tech approach allows the heat, smoke and flames to make their contribution to the finished surface. It also makes each piece unique as this process is exciting but unpredictable.