Between 2018 and 2024, Caroline Fisher Projects has shown work by the following ceramic artists:

Connor Coulston, Hiroko Aono-Billson, Bryony Applegate, Clive Bowen, By the Line Pottery, Grahame Clarke, Bjork Haraldsdottir, Akiko Hirai, Beatrice Galletley, Caroline Gray, Annette Lindenberg, Emma Marks, Matthew Richardson, Emma Johnson, Lydia Hardwick, Mark Scott-Wood, Laura Scott, Holly Stevenson, Nessie Stonebridge, Katie Spragg, Alice Walton, Tina Vlassopoulos, David Wright

Past exhibitions:

Littoral: a ceramic installation

Part of Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2024
10- 19 May 2024

The Potters Arms, 9 Trory Street, Norwich, NR2 2RH

The project Littoral: a ceramic installation is an immersive work by Emily S Jefferis curated by Caroline Fisher Projects. Originally made as part of a residency at Open School East, Margate, the piece will be recreated for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival with additional ceramic pieces adding to the richness of the work.

The concept of the work grew out of Emily’s preoccupation with the biological, geological and botanical. She discovered how the environments of coastal rockpools are microcosms of human society. She likes to question the anthropocentric view of the world that we humans are locked into and to explore the micro- and macroscopic through ceramics and other media such as sound and film.

Through her research, Emily descends back to our watery beginnings and uncovers the materiality we share with marine species. Sponge-like creatures living 750 million years ago are the organism from which humans and all other animals evolved. Human bones and ceramic glaze contain calcium carbonate (chalk), the same material many marine species use to build their skeletons. 

The work also gives us pause to reflect on our current impact on many marine species, such as the dissolution and mutation of their skeletons through Co2 induced acidification of the ocean. She hopes that the viewer will become immersed in the wonder of rock pool life, one that is fragile and through our attention to it and subsequent action, can be conserved.

Salon Show 2

6 Malvern Terrace, Islington, London, N1 1HR

1- 10 March 2024

Caroline Gray and Holly Stevenson

Caroline Gray’s sculptural vessels and installations are born out of a fascination with human interaction and psychological landscapes, creating spatial conversations through colour, shadow and form. The altered pattern or template is central to her process. Using a free-hand slab-building technique she alters, splices and re-joins clay pieces, creating unexpected curves and angles which render each form unique.

Her soft colours sometimes refer to the colour palette of specific paintings or painters and the subtle surfaces are achieved using terra sigillata, a superfine slip which she makes to a recipe used in Ancient Roman pottery, prior to the invention of glaze.

Caroline Gray arrived at clay via a journey through design, an MA in Fine Art and as a playwright. In 2023 she was selected as one of 25 emerging artists for FRESH 2023 at the British Ceramics Biennial, the highlight of the UK ceramic arts calendar. Caroline was one of four FRESH artists selected to receive a prize of £2500 and a four-week residency at Grymsdyke Farm, a centre of research into materials and innovation based in Buckinghamshire, UK.

Holly Stevenson likes to make work with site specific relationships in mind and has created public ceramic sculptures, notably for Frieze Sculpture 2023 in Regent’s Park and for The Artist's Garden, Temple Station Roof Terrace. Her work was shown at Caroline Fisher Projects in Norwich in 2020, just as the UK was going into the first Covid lockdown. Holly has also shown extensively in group exhibitions in the UK and Europe.

She was drawn to the fireplace at Malvern Terrace, it chimes with her ongoing project Sigmund Freud’s Ashtray, and so she has made new work reflecting on the importance of the hearth and its centrality to the nervous system of the home in years gone by. For this exhibition Holly has made a mirror, her first, to go above the fireplace, along with ‘ashtrays’ for the mantel piece and a pair of shoes, the titles of which playfully indicate the fireplace’s potential use.

Caroline Fisher Projects @ In The House, Norwich

An exhibition of work by three ceramic artists and a poet at Holkham House, a beautiful Georgian townhouse in Norwich

1- 3 September 2023

Lydia Hardwick, Laura Scott, Mark Scott-Wood, Nessie Stonebridge

‘Salon Show’, 6 Malvern Terrace, London, N1 1HR

10 March to 29 March 2023

Alice Foxen and Tamlin Lundberg

Tamlin Lundberg

Tamlin is based in Norfolk and is inspired by the experience of walking in the landscape. Her pieces, in stoneware and porcelain, originate in functional forms but are rooted in ideas around the passage of time and the relationship between the paces of a walk and the marks made in the clay. These marks also relate to water, to the texture of the Norfolk Broads in her home landscape with their strong horizontals and verticals. There is a Nordic flavour to her work that perhaps stems from her Scandinavian ancestry.

Tamlin Lundberg graduated with a MA from Norwich University of the Arts in 2008 and she creates her work at Lost Yard Studios in Norwich. She shows work regularly at Make in Holt, Norfolk.

 Alice Foxen

Alice’s sculptural work pushes clay to its limits, using experimental techniques and forms inspired by the everyday detritus of city life- the discarded objects that go unnoticed but in which she finds a certain beauty. She colours clay with muted pastel stains, suggesting domestic and bodily hues and introducing unusual textures through ‘foaming slip’ and ‘popping grog’ which lend an almost edible element to the work.

Alice Foxen graduated from the MA in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art in 2022. She has also spent time studying at the Ceramic Research Centre in Denmark and The Vermont Studio Centre in the USA. Her work has been shown at the British Ceramics Biennial and internationally in group exhibitions. Alice lives and works in London with a studio in Hackney.

Slippery material, 7 October to 29 October 2022

A celebration of ceramics made by artists using clay in a myriad of ways including slipware and other techniques:

Hiroko Aono-Billson, Clive Bowen, Beatrice Galletley, Bjork Haraldsdottir, Lydia Hardwick, Annette Lindenberg, Emma Marks, Matthew Richardson, Alice Walton

Thoughts from a sleepless night: new work by Connor Coulston 

Crypt Gallery, Norwich School, The Close, Norwich, NR1 4DD

13 May to 28 May 2022

Connor Coulston is an artist whose practice is defined by the ongoing conversation between his self-deprecating sense of humour, wild imagination and the materiality of clay. Coulston uses humour as a tool to create surreal and kitsch sculptures, lulling his audience into a false sense of security before the works’ more unsettling undertones are revealed. ‘Thoughts from a Sleepless Night’ explores the artist’s night-time ramblings, from celebrity culture to his fear of the dark.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not sleeping. Not sure if it was the bottle of 19 Crimes I necked or if it’s a simple case of insomnia… well, if I am being honest with you, I’m actually awake because I had a little sleep paralysis episode and I’m scared to go back to sleep.” 

"I find myself staring at my ceiling at 3am singing ‘Stop’ by the Spice Girls. My mind reels with ideas; flickering from my genuine love for Victoria Beckham to my fear of going back to sleep. I wanted to be Posh Spice when I was a kid. Yes, I’ll make a pot dedicated to Victoria Beckham to go in a Gothic crypt…”

Coulston’s sculptures, made using stoneware clay, seek to surprise, unsettle and entertain. They are made using traditional sculptural methods, drawing on the history of ceramics: Toby jugs, kitsch charity shop ornaments, ornate Classical vessels and Renaissance terracottas are all referenced in the making process. The addition of neon light to the pieces gives an added dimension and modernity to the sculptures and the results are humorous, colourful and sometimes shocking.

Connor Coulston (b. 1992) graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2017 and has since exhibited widely in the UK. He was winner of the Ingram Prize in 2020 and was shortlisted for the AWARD at the British Ceramics Biennial in Stoke on Trent in 2021 as well as for the Young Masters Art Prize in 2019 and the John Ruskin Art Prize in the same year.

Three Emerging Ceramic Artists

5 November to 18 December 2021

Beatrice Galletley, Annette Lindenberg, Emma Marks

Recent graduates of the Royal College of Art, Ceramics and Glass MA

The work ranges from explorations of the idea of a ‘vessel’ through to purely sculptural pieces and push the boundaries of what is possible in clay. Glazes reflect the season with rich reds and bright yellows through to subdued greys and greens.Three emerging ceramic artists

Emma Marks’ uses the sensuality of making with clay as a basis to reimagine our relationships with things. She employs multiple approaches to explore what we can learn from the enrapturing act of working with clay and offers us new encounters using ceramics, film, sound and photography.

 “My practice draws parallels between ceramic processes and rethinking how we live in the more-than-human world. I turn to the event of building a ceramic vessel to reimagine what we think we already know: How to make a pot? How to live in a world?”

 “If I am reappraising the vessel, I do so with humility. The vessel is my microcosm to ask the question - what happens if..? Like a world in itself, the idea of the vessel is a huge and complex system with an enormous history. At the same time, both are ‘of the everyday’ and accessible to all.”

Annette Lindenberg is a German/British ceramicist whose work focuses on Kurinuki, the traditional Japanese method of hollowing and carving blocks of clay. She uses a variety of clay bodies, often layering these together and she uses glazes that alter the nature of the pieces during firing, sometimes producing metallic droplets. Prior to her MA, Annette graduated from Cardiff Metropolitan University with a BA in Artist: Designer Maker. She has exhibited at the British Art Fair at Saatchi and the London Art Fair.

“The work I produce is only in part for myself, in part for others to discover for themselves; to examine and to feel how they wish to. When making, I remind myself that what I produce has longevity once fired, an ability to live on and must speak despite my narrative. My thoughts and process are the build up to my objects but may not always define them. Like the pebbles I collected as a child or the textures I am drawn to, all are but the womb in which the works are imagined and brought into being.”

Beatrice Galletley is a ceramic artist based in London. She gained her BA in Fine Art at Newcastle University where she graduated in 2018 and then studied for her Masters in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal Collage of Art.

Beatrice continues to develop her intuitive ceramic practice focusing on defying boundaries and categories, developing her work for ambitious large scale installations, site specific projects and private commissions.

“The culture of ceramics is perfect for exploring objects that exist within the ‘in-between’. With the history of this medium and my unique ambiguous forms, I am able to address the ability of an object to be multi-dimensional and in a state of flux. I do this through merging opposing forms: Including geometric and organic, and playing with scale, and manipulation of context and colour to create works that are suggestive, acting as prompts. My hope is that the forms uniquely connect and resonate with each viewer, encouraging discussion and challenging their understanding of how they place, see and experience objects.”

Plants, Porcelain, People

18 May to 12 June 2021

An exhibition of work by Katie Spragg and members of Norwich International Youth Project at St Peter Hungate Church as part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2021

In conjunction with the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Caroline Fisher Projects presented a new commission and installation at St Peter Hungate Church, Norwich.

Katie Spragg is based in London, UK, she graduated with first class honours from BA 3D Materials Practice at Brighton University in 2010 before completing and an MA Ceramics & Glass at the Royal College of Art in 2016 (where she now teaches). She has exhibited widely, participated in residencies and taught ceramics at institutions both nationally and internationally – including South Korea, Denmark and Germany.

Supported by Arts Council England and East Anglia Art Fund

Click here to watch the exhibition film: https://studio.youtube.com/video/d1NKb1xeLE8/edit

View the Plants, Porcelain, People exhibition film here:
https://youtu.be/d1NKb1xeLE8

Winter Glow: four emerging ceramic makers

Bryony Applegate, Bjork Haraldsdottir, Emily S Jefferis, Kathryn Sherriff

November- December 2020

An exhibition of sculptural and functional ceramics with a restrained and calm aesthetic and using a range of experimental techniques in clay.

The four ceramicists will show a selection of brand new work which will comprise tableware, statement pieces and sculptures.

Bryony Applegate graduated in 2020 from the MA in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art. During her time at the RCA she spent a month on a residency in Jingdezhen, China where she honed her porcelain slip casting techniques.

Her work consists of functional tableware and lighting made using the experimental techniques of marbling and piping with porcelain slip. In creating tableware, Bryony likes to work with chefs to create pieces that complement their food and she has recently embarked upon a partnership with a well-known chef.

Bryony says of her work:

“Recently, I have focused on material-led thinking and innovative processes in order to create a collection of lighting for the home, as well as a collection of tableware aimed at Michelin star restaurants. The designs themselves are minimalist in style but elegant, utilising contrasting qualities such as colour, material and finish to create eye-catching objects…”

Bjork Haraldsdottir is originally from Iceland. She trained as an architect in the UK, worked for Richard Rogers Architects and ran her own practice for several years in London. Her move to ceramics came in 2011 when she set up her own studio in West Dorset, where she still works. Her background in architecture informs the strong geometry of her work, though the forms themselves have an organic, sculptural quality.

She says:

“Training to become a Ceramicist has happened in a fluid way through part time training and a significant amount of self-teaching and experimentation.

Practical knowledge of how clay behaves under different environmental exposure has been mainly gained at a Somerset Pottery under the guidance of Master Potter Douglas Phillips.”

Emily S Jefferis is based in London and graduated from the Royal College of Art, MA in Ceramics and Glass in 2018.

Her sculptural work alludes to organic, living forms such as spores, seeds, fungi and plants. She works between drawing and making, working out her ideas using colour and collage and translating them into clay forms with luscious coloured glazes. For this exhibition Emily is showing some of her more functional pieces for the first time.

She says:

“My current work draws upon the materiality of clay to explore states of flux and growth. Pieces rise from the ground, shifting, morphing and reaching, engaging the viewer with their human scale. They are a terrain of the body, of the landscape, of touch, of memory.”

Kathryn Sherriff is based in Carshalton, South London alongside the railway line, so she has called her pottery studio, ‘By the line pottery’.

She makes fine, wheel thrown porcelain ware, decorated using an inlay technique and with a restricted range of colours, mainly varying blues and oranges.

She says of her work:

“My aim is to create pieces with simple designs, clean lines and muted colour palettes that are practical and will work in most homes and on any dining table.

I like to think that there's an element of my love of mid-century modern design in my pottery. I often leave the exteriors unglazed to create a tactile contrast between the raw clay and the glazed surfaces. Decoration is applied using coloured slips, inlaid lines and carved repeating patterns.”

Lydia Hardwick and Holly Stevenson

21 March to 26 September 2020

An exhibition of work by two ceramicists with very different approaches.

Lydia Hardwick’s work has come out of a functional ceramic tradition using a ceramic inlay technique. She is currently experimenting with a more ‘fine art’ approach including wall pieces that are shown for the first time in this exhibition.

Holly Stevenson works in ceramic sculpture and collage and showed in Norwich as part of the exhibition ‘In Quotes’ in 2017. Her quirky ceramic sculptures relate to femininity and sensuality.

MEET THE ARTISTS event on Saturday 26 September between 12 noon and 5pm.

Thank you to all those who supported us, here are a few pictures:

Lydia Hardwick graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2013. Using surface techniques, such as inlaying and slip decorating, her working methods are meditative and intuitive, developed through an understanding of materials gained over years of working with clay.

Hardwick is drawn to patterns and motifs found within indigenous craft objects and textiles, made by communities that attribute great expressive power to visual things. Intrigued by the mysterious formal vocabulary of folk geometry, she combines a myriad of making traditions with influences from European art and design to produce work that aims to reconnect us to an ancient appreciation of line, surface, tone and texture as presences unto themselves.

At Caroline Fisher Projects, traditional ceramic forms will be exhibited alongside abstract material experiments. Pots, forms that are intrinsic to human creativity, adorned with pattern will be placed throughout the space, alongside relief palm-sized ‘swatches’ of clay arranged on the walls of the gallery. The work will act as a series of meditations on the illusive nature of meaning in visual things, reawakening personal experiences of place, pattern and surface.

In 2015, Hardwick collaborated and exhibited with the Turner Prize winning group, Assemble and showed in the Beazley ‘Designs of the Year’ exhibition at London’s Design Museum. She is a qualified teacher, regularly delivering workshops at the Royal Academy of Arts, Whitechapel Gallery and Camden Arts Centre, London. In 2016 her work with Assemble was acquired by the V&A for their collection.

Holly Stevenson’s ceramic practice is informed by an intense interest in psychoanalysis and her sculpture explores how shape and colour might suggest embodied narratives.

Her ongoing studio project entitled ‘Freud’s Ashtray’ is inspired by Sigmund Freud’s favourite marble ashtray, still to be found on his desk at the Freud Museum in Hampstead. The feminine shaped ovular artefact equipped with the remains of a cylindrical phallic cigar provide the two modest forms, the oval and the cylinder, that the artist repeatedly recreates in clay as the foundation stones to her work. Within the hand built bulging surreal forms meaning becomes contained: Clay shapes up to take on characters, often adorned with chains and flowers, so that Narcissus’ pools and Uncanny bouquets develop into brightly glazed ceramic compositions reflecting on tales of quirky bodies, femininity and sensuality.

Stevenson started to work obsessively with clay in 2016, after a guest residency in Sichuan, China. She graduated from the Chelsea College of Art and Design MFA in 2011 with the generous help of the Stanley Picker Foundation and is currently a resident artist in the Ceramics Studio Co-op, London. Her work has been shown widely in the UK, Cubitt, The Barbican, Zabludowicz Collection, Flat Time House, John Latham Foundation and Gazelli Art House amongst others, as well as in China and Italy.

Tina Vlassopulos

November 2019 to January 2020

The exhibition presents a range of Tina’s ceramic sculptures created over the past year. The work relates to Tina’s acute observation of human characteristics and her unique ability to represent these in clay.

Conversations with Friends is a ceramic installation created for Collect 2019 at the Saatchi Gallery, London, made up of abstract portraits of Vlassopulos’ friends. The pieces are placed on a long table with the sculptures facing each other, in a facsimile of a dinner party. This installation will be accompanied by a number of smaller works made specially for the show in Norwich.

The idea of making a conversation between friends in ceramic came originally from Tina’s visit the Giacometti exhibition at Tate Modern in 2017. She saw the sculpture, Couple in plaster and became aware of the way in which this sculpture used visual language to portray the characteristics of two people. As a bilingual artist, Tina started to think about the universality of visual language and how conveying characteristics visually can overcome the limitations of translation between written or spoken languages.

Tina made three sculptural pieces that represented herself and her three sisters and building on the success of these pieces went on to represent some of her friends in a similar way. The resulting group of 14 sculptural pieces became Conversations with Friends, a portion of which is shown here in Norwich.

Tina says of the work:

“It is made in defiance of the cacophony of the digital age and as a celebration of friendship and the spirit of the individual.”

Grahame Clarke Porcelain

6 July to 14 September 2019

Grahame Clarke (1942- 2014) was an artist in clay. He trained in the English studio pottery tradition, but over his lifetime he refined his process of making and decorating porcelain that was as fine and inventive as some of the greatest Chinese practitioners.

This exhibition will show a range of work kindly loaned by Grahame’s family, from the earliest to the later periods of Grahame’s career. There are stunning bowls and platters decorated with scenes from nature and his environment in Norfolk as well as more abstract designs from the earlier part of his career influenced by Danish design and artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi.

Caroline Fisher says of the exhibition:

“When I was learning about porcelain in 2011-2012, Grahame kindly allowed me to assist him in his studio, as he fulfilled his final few commissions. I remember being in awe of Grahame’s skill when watching him at work; preparing clay, decorating bisque ware, and particularly throwing porcelain on his homemade kick wheel. He made it look absolutely effortless.”

“So it is a great privilege to launch this exhibition, the first to show Grahame Clarke’s work since his untimely death in 2014. The way that Grahame matched fineness of production, useable form and charming decoration is what makes his work unique. I hope that the exhibition will give people an insight into the work of this immensely talented but modest craftsman and artist.”

Grahame’s family say: 

“Growing up, our father’s tableware and decorative pieces played an integral part in our home life.  He always wanted his work to be practical and hardy, beautifully designed so that spouts poured properly, handles were comfortable to hold and lids fitted well.  His unique glazes and shapes set the standard, and ensured we were fed from only the very best tableware.  His larger vases and bowls were always generous and often humorous, latterly in porcelain featuring snapshots of his life in the Norfolk countryside.  He loved ceramics in all its forms and today his work and his collaborations remind us of a special father, a skilled craftsman, and a life well lived.”

The pieces chosen for the exhibition include some of the largest and technically demanding that Grahame made. Mostly blue and white porcelain, they were fired to a high temperature to achieve the whitest porcelain and brightest blue decoration. The forms show a high degree of skill in throwing and their decoration includes natural scenes, Norfolk landmarks and more abstract and stylised designs.

Biography

As a teenager, Grahame was briefly an apprentice to Harry and May Davis at Crowan Pottery in Cornwall, where he learnt how to be fastidious about the techniques of production pottery, primarily using stoneware clay.  He attended Hornsey College of Art, followed by a postgraduate degree in ceramics at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1962.  He later learnt the art of decorating porcelain in Stoke on Trent, predominantly with Royal Doulton, and in Denmark, working for the Bing and Grondhal ceramic works in Copenhagen. These contrasting experiences gave him a lifelong interest in fitting the decoration of his work to form and function. His interest in Chinese ceramics also influenced the way that he decorated his work and he began to collect pieces when he could afford to.

Having established himself as a potter in London, Grahame returned to teach at the Royal College of Art, later becoming a Senior Lecturer in Ceramics and Glass. He became friends with Eduardo Paolozzi who was interested in the potential for modernist decoration on clay surfaces. Two unique platters/bowl will be shown in the exhibition that have Paolozzi’s decoration in cobalt blue and are both signed by Paolozzi, Clarke and his student David Grant.

Together with fellow RCA lecturer David Douglas, Marquess of Queensberry and David Grant, Grahame set up Highland Stoneware and advised David Grant on semi industrial processes required for production on a larger scale. Despite visiting Scotland and close involvement with the Highland Stoneware enterprise, Grahame remained in London and worked increasingly in porcelain, setting up his own venture, Grahame Clarke Porcelain, in Barnet. He developed a high fired porcelain clay, a Chinese style clay body, which was thrown or cast and then decorated with scenes and motifs from his own experience in London and later Norfolk, but inspired by blue and white Delftware and Lowestoft porcelain.

Grahame was constantly supported by his wife, Christine and in 1990 they found ahistoric Old Hall to renovate just to the west of Norwich. He set up his studio and a small shop there and became involved in the Norfolk artistic scene while still retaining links to London and taking commissions from David Leach, Heals in London, Jane Churchill, Thomas Goode and from many private individuals. He also continued to do what he loved best, developing new designs in porcelain that married form, function and decoration.

Sadly, Grahame died in 2014 after a short illness but his legacy lives on in his beautiful work, treasured by all who enjoy and use it. 

Studio pottery from the ‘60s and ‘70s

Concurrent with the exhibition, Caroline Fisher Projects will have a selection of studio pottery for sale, including David Leach, Robert Tinnyunt, Andrew Hague and Coxwold Pottery. The pieces all come from a single Norwich collection and were acquired over many years- however the collection is now being sold. There will be something for everyone, from reasonably priced bowls and mugs to larger pieces.

Previous exhibition

Alice Walton and Emma Johnson

23 March- 19 April 2019

Alice Walton is a ceramicist based in London who makes surprising and whimsical sculptures using coloured clay. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2018 and she has already exhibited widely and undertaken residencies at London’s V&A museum, in Italy and Denmark.

Emma Johnson is based in Brighton, having graduated from M(Des) at the University of Brighton in 2018. She makes functional, slip cast pieces whose design pays tribute to 1960s architecture.

Nature in and out of place

30 November- 22 December 2018

An exhibition of ceramics and photography that considers natural materials and the representation of nature through ceramics.

From Greek foliate designs to the Pre-Raphaelite painters and beyond, the depiction of nature has long been a preoccupation of artists. This exhibition looks at the representation of plants as well as the use of natural materials- of which clay itself is the one of the most basic. 

Nature in and out of place includes sculptural pieces by Katie Spragg, Scott Stuart and functional ceramics by Antje Ernestus, Akiko Hirai, Scott Stuart, David Wright

Nature in and out of place at Caroline Fisher Projects from 30 November to 22 December 2018

Katie Spragg, Climber, 2018, image courtesy of the artist

Works by Katie Spragg, part of Nature in and out of place, 30 November to 22 December 2018