2025
Brick Museum, Driving Creek Pottery, Coromandel, Aotearoa, 17.08.25
I use ceramic processes to explore the material limits of sculpture, functionality and form. I like to invert the techniques of traditional pottery to make something which enquires into it's own making. I work with foraged and industrial materials such as dug clay and wood ash as well as quarried clay and the brick form from local industry. My exploration of materials were always used as a way of positioning an idea, but nowadays I let them position me.
Exhibition:
Born from GLOST glaze’s material research interviews and founder Elena Gileva’s decades-long investigation into ceramic materials, GROUND WORKS examines the fundamental relationship between raw materials and ceramic creation, offering visitors insight into the processes that shape contemporary sustainable practices. Glost glaze presents the journey from mineral to form, highlighting the crucial dialogue between scientific understanding and artistic expression through this exhibition.
Through a curated collection of melt tests, geological specimens, and infographics, visitors gain insight into the chemistry and methodology behind glaze making and material experimentation. The exhibition emphasizes process and research, showcasing how contemporary makers approach material testing and development in their practice.
Equal importance is placed on process and outcome. Through prototypes, test pieces, and works-in-progress, visitors gain understanding of the methodical journey of material investigation. The displayed work represents the rigorous process of research, testing, and refinement, offering transparency into ceramic development.
Phil Root’s recent work investigates the transformational parallels between clay and the human body. In a series of sculptural works resembling loaves of bread, he uses glazes made from multivitamin powders and incorporates over-fired bricks to evoke a sense of decomposition and renewal. These "loaves" act as metaphors for nourishment, mortality, and regeneration, drawing visual and symbolic inspiration from The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein and the Bayeux Tapestry’s collapsing horses.
Imagery is initially rendered onto the white clay bricks as delicate drawings or paintings. As the pieces undergo intense wood-firing, these surfaces fracture, distort, or disappear, reflecting the unpredictability of bodily and material transformation. Root integrates peripheral studio materials such as cordierite, alumina hydrate, and ash from living plants to create a complex chemistry during firing. When subjected to extreme heat, these additives melt into a glassy finish that both stabilises and emphasises surface ruptures, simulating alchemical or biological reactions.
The firing process itself is a central element of the work. Each piece is fired in a wood kiln for up to thirty-six hours at temperatures reaching 1,400°C. As oxygen in the kiln depletes, flames consume the chemically bound oxygen in the clay and glazes, pushing the material to its structural and chemical limits. This process produces unpredictable results, recording both destruction and formation. For Root, this is a visceral metaphor for the human body's cycles of entropy and survival.
Recent:
Pick It Up! Curated by Morven Mulgrew, 17 Midland Road, Bristol, an exhibition of ceramic and glass art you can pick up and drink from!
