Oxford Ceramics Fair

Another year, another Oxford Ceramics Fair - such pleasure.

Lots of stalls again, and I have included only a small fraction of what was there. It was a real pleasure seeing and touching the work of favourite makers, people like Ashraf Hanna, Lara Scobie, Barbara Gittings, Katharina Klug, just to mention a few. Liz O'Dwyer is a new discovery. It was all just lovely.

Jeremy Nichols:

Saltglazed domestic pots. 

Kim Colebrook:

'Working mainly in black and white porcelain with iron oxides, my work is inspired by the geology and history of the South Wales Coalfield. I use a loose Nerikomi approach to reference the fractures and distortions that the pressures of the earth have created, as well as a technique where I burn and stretch the surface of the porcelain'.

Maria Wojdat:

Hand-built and cast sculptural vessels and wall pieces. Inspired by mid-century art and design, the pieces are minimal. The pared back forms become the canvas for bold colour combinaions.

Rachel Holian:

These pots and installations are tiny on slab rolled porcelain bases. Hand thrown, turned, stamped and glazed, but sometimes they are left unglazed and high fired. These collections of porcelain vessels are grouped in a specific way.

Billy Adams:

Mostly vessels, in a combination of textures and colours. These are aimed to be experienced as pieces of sculpture reminiscent of landscapes.

Rachel Peters:

Hand-built vessels and sculptures using grogged stoneware clays with the coiling method.  Concentrating on form and texture these ceramics are minimal without decoration. A muted colour palette.

Jaeeum Kim:

Kim's vessels represent HTP (House-Tree-Person) objects which are widely used in Art Therapy, a form of psychotherapy, to find clues about a person's hidden emotions. Each vase describes a unique story of a  'journey back home'.

Ashraf Hanna:

'I make handbuilt vessels. Forms explore relationships between geometric formal lines and soft curves. Cut and altered works engage with the concealment and exposure of internal space as a key component of design'.

Katharina Klug:

'While striving for symmetry in the shape of the vessel, I deliberately embrace imperfections in my surface pattern designs. I draw freehand onto the form using my trademark crayons'.

Roger Cockram:

Indidvidual pieces in porcelain, thrown on the wheel and sometimes altered.

Justine Allison:

Hand-built porcelain.

Moyra Stewart:

Inspired by the geology of Scotland these raku pieces seem more like stone than clay. They are extremely smooth and wonderful to touch.

Ania Perkowska:

Growing up as a child in communist Poland, Perkowska's life was underpinned by stark grey concrete structures. Her work draws from the rawness.

Bjork Haraldsdottir:

Slab built pieces. The flat slabs are pattern cut and jointed.

Jemma Gowland:

Building on the long tradition of the porcelain figurine, these porcelain figures explore upbringing and attitude, using cast doll faces, fired dressmaker's pins and mixed media. 

Robyn Hardyman:

Thrown vessels on the wheel in porcelain. 

Barbara Gittings:

These complex yet delicate vessels are smoke-fired. Gittings uses the Nerikomi method. They are absolutely fabulous.

Zeita Scott:

These delicate porcelain pieces are thrown and hand built.

Liz O'Dwyer:

Wheel thrown porcelain pieces. Modern, clean, crisp lines along the purity of the porcelain, create a contrast for the strong cobalt lines that cut through the surface.

Tricia Thom:

Porcelain pieces with calligraphic brush motifs. The surfaces are treated with saturated oxide splash or glazed with clear/blue glaze

Lara Scobie:

Slip-cast vessels using 'parian' clay. Decoration is then applied to the mostly asymmetric forms. The colours are breathtaking.