Firing an experimental Boury box kiln I built whilst on residency at Driving Creek Pottery, Coromandel, Aotearoa, 2025
I am a visual artist who uses ceramic processes to explore the material limits of sculpture, functionality and form. I like to invert the techniques of traditional craft pottery to make something which enquires into it's own making. I work with foraged and industrial materials such as dug clay, wood ash as well as quarried clay from my local brick factory. Materials were always used as a way of positioning an idea, but nowadays I let them position me.
I work from my studio at Spike Island, Bristol and fire my work at Lyde Green Pottery, an wood kiln site in North Bristol that I founded in 2021. I regularly run workshops on wood firing and kiln bulding and also a lecturer in Ceramics and Fine Art at the Bristol School of Art.
Before moving to Bristol, I was resident at Wysing Arts Centre, where I spent time renovating the ceramics studio. This studio has since become a spring board for many contemporary artists wishing to explore the medium as well as the place where I co-founded The Grantchester Pottery a project navigating the boundaries between art, craft and authroship.
C V
ADDRESS
Studio 34, Spike Island, BS1 6UX
phil@philrootstudio.com
EDUCATION
BA(hons) Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, London
SELECTED PUBLIC COMMISSIONS / EXHIBITIONS
2026
Flat Earth, Modern Painters, New Decorators, Loughborough, UK
2025
Ground Work, County Hall Pottery, London, curated by GLOST
Pick It Up! curated by Morven Mulgrew, 17 Midland Road, Bristol
2023 - 2024
Absolute Beginners, Park Royal, London
2022 - 2024
Meadware TACO!, Thamesmead, London
2021
Lyde Green Pottery, Bristol
2020
New Build, Broadway Gallery, Letchworth Garden City
These Are The Days My Friends, Kupfer Projects, London
2019
The Moorings, underpass design, Peabody estate, Thamesmead, London
Lunar Gardening, Kingsgate Project Space, London
2018
Host, Intercession Gallery, Northampton with Jacqui Hallum
2016
Harvest, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Scarborough
2014
Kyoto, 2004, Backdrop Commission, Jerwood Space, London
RESIDENCIES
2025
Driving Creek Pottery, New Zealand
2022
The Garage, Bristol
2016
Camden Arts Centre, Ceramics Fellowship, London
2011-2012
Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge
2010
A Curriculum, A Foundation, Liverpool
2007
Atelier Milchhof, Berlin