About

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 and the brick form from local industry. Coming from a fine art background, materials were always used as a way of positioning an idea, but nowadays I let them position me.

My recent work explores the connection between the transformation of clay and the metabolism of a living body. I've been experimenting with glazes made from multi-vitamin supplements and over-fired bricks that resemble loaves of bread.

The 'Loaves' incorporate imagery from transitional moments in human history, such as The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein and buckling horses from the Bayeux Tapestry. These images are presented as traditional paintings or drawings with white, rectangular faces which become distorted as the brick bubbles and rises, pushed beyond its material limit to the melting point, causing the images to rupture, obscurity or complete erasure. I also use peripheral ceramic materials from my studio, such as Cordierite and Alumina Hydrate, to create surface tension. Additionally, multi-vitamins and the ash of living plants is sieved onto the surface to form a melted glass that attempts to hold in place the ruptures and fissures, reflecting the alchemical or metabolic reactions taking place.

These works undergo a lengthy wood firing process that can take between twelve and thirty-six hours to complete, reaching temperatures of up to 1400 degrees Celsius, the limit of ceramic firing. During this time, the atmosphere inside the kiln is starved of oxygen, causing the fire to feed directly on the chemically bound oxygen within the work itself.

I work from my studio at Spike Island, Bristol as well as firing my work at Lyde Green Pottery, an educational wood fired kiln site in North Bristol that I founded in 2021 and regularly run workshops on local clay and glaze development as well as lecturering in Ceramics and Fine Art at the Bristol School of Art.

In 2018 I co-founded Caraboo Projects, an organisation producing exhibitions, workshops & residencies which support artists’ professional development in the South West.

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.