Blaine Avery: Ash glazed handbuild tray with spanish iron red glaze
Ceramic artists
Vivika and Otto Heino
Vivika and Otto Heino’s profile on Ceramics Now Magazine - View their works
Vivika and Otto Heino collaborated from 1950 until 1995, the year of Vivika’s death. Their work is distinguished by its clean lines and distinctive glazes. Despite getting under way during the Depression, the Heinos supported themselves as potters throughout their careers. Their world was guided by a strong work ethic and a love of clay. Unfazed by ceramic trends, they remained true to their sense of what pottery should be—traditional and utilitarian.
Otto and Vivika were part of a generation that sought to redefine the art of ceramics in relation to modern art and culture. The “potters,” as the Heinos and their contemporaries were proud to be called, were influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement, Germany’s Bauhaus, and the potters of Japan.
Otto and Vivika’s work is collected world-wide and has been exhibited internationally at the Picasso Museum in Vallauris, France; San Francisco’s De Young Museum; Los Angeles’ County Art Museum and Craft Folk Art Museum; New York’ American Craft Museum; Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian’ and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Twentieth Century Fox commissioned them to create 751 pieces of pottery for the film, “The Egyptian.”
Daniel Kavanagh
Daniel Kavanagh’s profile on Ceramics Now Magazine - View his works
“Forms are classical yet contemporary defined by crisp elegant lines and flowing shapes; inspired by ancient Greek pottery and Japanese as well as the art and architecture of South East Asia. The Highland landscape is a constant, ever changing influence in my work, drawing inspiration from the light, space and reflective qualities this vast landscape offers.
Contrast is an important aspect to my work the interplay between control and unpredictability, traditional and contemporary, solid but with a feeling of lightness. Despite these contrasting qualities I always aspire to create something that is both beautiful and complete. I enjoy the interplay of more organic and fortuitous surfaces applied to these controlled forms which create a distinct finish to the work. Work that combines ceramic and bronze materials provide an innovative exploration of the two mediums I am most passionate about. I am beginning to explore the experience of how a thrown form can then be adapted to become a piece of sculpture in its own right.” Daniel Kavanagh
Nagae Shigekazu
Nagae Shigekazu’s profile on Ceramics Now Magazine - View his works
Nagae Shigekazu (born in 1953), is one of the leading pioneers of porcelain casting and firing techniques in Japan. Casting is commonly associated with the mass production of porcelain, yet Nagae valiantly transcends this stereotype, ultimately elevating this technique to the avant-garde. Casting alone cannot achieve the natural movements found within Nagae’s forms. In fact, the intensity of his gas-kiln fires help mould, shape and curve his delicate white porcelain, thereby giving birth to sleek and razor-thin silhouettes that have become Nagae trademarks.
His popularity and recognition as an artist have skyrocketed, with acquisitions by the V&A in London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Australia in just the past 3 years. Also collected by leading institutions such as the Musée National de Ceramique-Sèvres in Paris and the Musée Ariana in Geneva, among others, as well as receiving prestigious awards such as the Grand Prixs at the 1998 Triennale de la Porcelain in Nyon, the Mino Ceramic Festival and the Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition (both 1997), Nagae Shigekazu’s stature and respect in the world of porcelain has reached new heights.
Matthew Chambers
Matthew Chambers’ profile on Ceramics Now Magazine - View his works
“I make sculpture that is born from the potters wheel. Many sections are thrown and built to create a constructed beauty, rhythm, and symmetry in abstract form. I am interested in the travel and progression of layered three dimensional pattern, and how this can create different qualities depending on the workings of three essential factors:
- The construction: Simplicity to complexity. Circular or fragmented.
- The rhythm pattern: Different rhythms produced through the construction and the placement of parts.
- The viewing position and depth in form: Horizontal, vertical or angular. Inside space or enclosed rhythm.” Matthew Chambers
Tim Andrews
Tim Andrews’ profile on Ceramics Now Magazine - View his works
“My work is really about form and surface. The pieces are non-functional and have to ‘justify their existence’ by imparting a ‘presence’ - does it have life; does it sing? Elusive qualities but worth striving for when everything comes together.” Tim Andrews
The pieces are usually thrown, although recent pieces are handbuilt. Bisque-firing is in a conventional gas kiln to 1060 degrees Celcius. Many pieces have a ‘resist’ slip and glaze applied and are then fired in a ‘top hat’ glass-fibre kiln to around 1000 degrees Celcius, before removal when red-hot to a smoking chamber. When cold the resist glaze is chipped off and the pot cleaned up and waxed.
Claire Muckian
Claire Muckian’s profile on Ceramics Now Magazine - View her works
“Lying somewhere between contemporary ceramics and sculpture, my work presents a hybrid of both disciplines.
Currently, the work centres on obscure, hidden and uncontrolled spaces that arise through the ceramic making process. I construct using fine hand-building techniques such as pinching and coiling to form thin walls. By making in this way, interesting spaces present themselves, whilst also highlighting the dialogue between the interior and exterior. Lattice-work (alternating bands of supports and rows) enables me to construct delicate structures that are at once open and closed. Often, I use motifs to denote meaning.
Materially, I use a variety of different clays such as porcelain, terracotta and stoneware clays. In particular, I enjoy using porcelain, which I exploit for its delicacy and translucence. Sometimes I introduce a variety of mixed media such as wax. Works range in scale from the intimate to large scale.
I strive towards the qualities of anonymous art. Paring back to pure, multi-referencing and ambiguous elements, I draw influence from concentrated forms such as menhirs, circles and lozenges. Abstract, yet familiar, these are objects that appeal to the archaic content of the mind where the viewer might approach some form of recognition.” Claire Muckian
Adam Frew
Adam Frew’s profile on Ceramics Now Magazine - View his works
Adam is a story teller, sometimes intuitively, always spontaneously, and this reveals itself in his work. The white porcelain is a perfect ground for the inky cobalt drawings which decorate his pots. Some imagery is restrained to the simplicity of a single line and other images depict busy narratives. Simple sprigs reminiscent of wax seals from a bygone era embellish some of the surfaces.
“It is important that there is a flow in my work and if I loose that flow, I loose the energy. My work is an ongoing journey”. Adam Frew
‘The nature of Adam’s ceramic pots allows the owner to continually revisit their purchase, gaining pleasure from seeing new and wonderful things in its quirky decoration.’ Kim Mawhinney, Head of Art. Ulster Museum
Maciej Kasperski
Maciej Kasperski’s profile on Ceramics Now Magazine - View his works
“I am interested in the mutual relations between form and function of an object. It is connected with my belief in an exceptional aesthetic value of every-day items. Functionality comes for me as a starting point for analysing an aesthetic form.
I aspire to make art understandable, if not on the level of rational or intelectual analysis, then at least on the level of feelings, senses or aesthetic pleasure.” Maciej Kasperski
Maciej Kasperski was born in 1969. In 1996 graduated from Ceramics and Glass Department of Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. At present, he is a tutor at the Ceramics Faculty of AFA in Wrocław.
