ARTISTS AND TEACHERS
Culford Studio Ceramics is a group of professional ceramic artists who are based within Culford Studios, the former workplace and home of Kate Malone. Along side their individual Art practice, various members of the studio also run workshops, teaching a rich and wide range of skills suitable to both beginners and more experienced practitioners.
Find out more and follow our artists here:
EMILY STAPLETON JEFFERIS
Emily works between drawing and making, with a particular focus on the use of clay. Craft skills are integral to her practice as she pushes her material knowledge to pursue an excellence of making. There is a constant dialogue between her 2-dimensional drawings, paintings and prints, and her 3-dimensional sculptures.
Along with her own body Emily looks to inspiration from the botanical and geological, zooming in on the overlooked or unseen, extracting the wonder and beauty and the strangeness that exists just out of sight. She investigates the relationships between the microscopic and macroscopic, drawing on the landscapes around us and the science-fiction worlds existing within our imaginations. Her work is simultaneously familiar and alien.
Emily is a graduate of the MA Ceramics and Glass programme at The Royal College of Art, where she was awarded The Griffin Scholarship and The Eduardo Paolozzi Travel Award. She has exhibited her work alongside fellow artists in a range of venues throughout London and has undertaken artist residencies at The Leonora Carrington Museum in Mexico, at Hogchester Arts in Dorset, UK and at The Kunstlerhaus in Germany.
Emily's Instagram - @emilysjefferis
ELLA PORTER
Ella’s practice is concerned with ideas surrounding the artefact, personal collections and memory. Curious to explore the sentimental meaning placed on objects with consideration to the value systems attached to materiality, form and scale, Ella carefully orchestrates Individual pieces into collections, acting as curator as well as artist, providing an internal logic and language within the work from one object to another.
Ella’s work is often informed by her background in painting and printmaking, which has led to a strong relationship between surface and form within her practice. She works predominantly with clay and print looking at ideas of preservation and trace, whilst taking inspiration from the overlooked beauty in wear and decay, the built environment and historic ceramic artefacts.
Ella is currently studying at The Royal college of Art on the second year of her MA in Ceramics and Glass.
She has been awarded a scholarship from The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, which supports her MA and current research.
Ella previously completed a BA in Painting and printmaking from Glasgow School of Art.
Ella's Instagram - @ellaporterstudio
TANA WEST
Tana is an artist who uses the language of ceramic materials and object making to connect with social, political, and historical contexts. She studied sculpture at Central St Martins, completing an MA at the Royal College of Art in Ceramics and Glass in 2014. Her work frequently involves place specific and collaborative approaches. Recent projects include ’Orchard Works’, a project aimed to invigorate a rethinking of the region’s apple culture, a sector deeply rooted in Somerset’s identity. Tana has waded into the mud with environmental historians examining our relationship to water, as part of a collaboration between ‘The Power and the Water’ and ‘Towards Hydrocitizenship’ projects. In 2017 she won the Award at the British Ceramics Biennial for [UN]WOVEN, made with the help of a distributed online community across borders sending clayey soil in a variety of ad hoc receptacles and was selected for Jerwood makers Open in 2019, making ‘Through a Glass Darkly’ a black ceramic version of a funfair hall of mirrors. She was also the recipient of the Feldspar award for the Whitegold International Ceramics Prize.
Tana's Instagram - @West_Adrift
ANTONIO FOIS
Antonio questions ontological hierarchies and their systemic boundaries within his work.
He is fascinated by the interrelation between societies and their territories. Confronting different perspectives and semantic codes enables him to acquire a critical voice - deconstructing the aesthetic and methodological views incorporated in experience.
The dichotomy between surface and shape has been at the core of the ceramic field, which still defines and connotes the existing context. Antonio's practice explores that liminal space to redefine the perception of structure/façade. He combines traditional hand-building and casting processes with experimentation using glazes and glass as part of the body. He is also speculatively exploring different materials at a greater scale for site-specific projects.
Antonio graduated with an MA in Human Geography at the University of Sassari (IT) and completed a Diploma in Ceramics at FITSTIC, Faenza (IT). He has just graduated at the Royal College of Art with an MA in Ceramics and Glass, awarded with a scholarship by the Fondazione di Sardegna.
His work has been shortlisted for the 59th Faenza International Ceramic Prize.
Antonio's Instagram - @antoniofoisceramics
JOELY CLINKARD
Vivid, energetic ceramics that use clay as a canvas to tell stories of the city. Whether its the orange of glow of low sun on a building or sgraffito black lines in the form of a figure, Joely’s hand painted surface stories echo imagery from architecture, nature and art that
adorns city streets, creating work which is a portrait of the city and the energy of the people within it.
All work is hand-built or hand thrown on the wheel, the unique forms then guide the marks which are painted on the surface, appreciating the small nuances and idiosyncrasies in each. She uses the clay body as a dynamic canvas, applying slips, wax, glaze and underglaze in layers, often cutting and drawing back into them to create surface paintings that go deeper than on paper.
Joely graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2016 and was nominated for the Central Saint Martins MullenLowe Nova Award, received the Great Northern Graduates Award and has since exhibited with Plinth UK, London Design Festival, Bevere Gallery and The Mission Gallery amongst others.
With a passion for using clay and drawing as a tool for imagining, learning and sharing, she has worked on community and educational projects with organisations such as The Crafts Council and The William Morris Gallery and is currently at tutor in Ceramics at
Hampstead School of Art.
Joely's Instagram - @joelyclinkard
LIZ JACKSON
Liz has just completed an MA in ceramics at the RCA in London.
Her work explores the way in which meaning can emerge through making and the ambiguity of composition. Using colour, glaze, intuitive and considered making she look to create work which evokes thought or feeling in the viewer and might offer a reflection on the human condition and modes of being.
Playing with different ceramic processes Liz use the familiarity of everyday objects, the history of ‘things’ and gestural and abstract processes to create scenes of visual delight and intrigue. Through the unspoken language of objects and their interaction with one another Liz is keen to find commonalities amongst viewers which will lead them on a journey of visual association and individual meaning making. She explores the fluidity of meaning and subjectivity of the viewer through composition and versatile components which display their own visual language.
Liz's Instagram - @ejacksonjackson
ZAHED TAJ-EDDIN
The Syrian sculptor, Zahed Taj-Eddin is a polymath, an artist, archaeologist and scientist whose sculptural practice operates across many disciplines. His fascination with ancient technology led him to study and practice a variety of specialities including ceramics, glass making and metal casting alongside work as a conservator. He also has degrees in Chemistry, Fine Art, an MA in Archaeology and PhD in Archaeological Science and Sculptural Practice. This multi-disciplinary expertise comes together to inform Zahed’s artwork, which often employs ancient techniques and materials to explore important contemporary social issues with meticulous craftsmanship and precise scientific methods.
Zahed likes his work to be seen as a melting pot, where times and cultures fuse together to form artefacts that can speak to us all and deal with issues and values beyond borders and time.
Zahed's Instagram - @zahedtajeddin
BISILA NOHA
Bisila Noha is a Spanish London-based ceramic artist. With her work she aims to challenge Western views on art and craft; to question what we understand as productive and worthy in capitalist societies; and to reflect upon the idea of home and oneness pulling from personal experiences in different pottery communities.
Strongly influenced by Japanese ceramics, she makes ‘simple’ ceramic pieces that she uses either as canvas for abstract landscapes or as the embodiment of her reflections and personal life stories.
Her work has primarily been wheel thrown, with the distinctive addition of marbled slip decoration. However, in 2020 with her project Baney Clay: An Unearthed Identity, she set off on a new journey using different clay bodies and mixing coiling and throwing.
Her work has been exhibited at London Art Fair, Edinburgh Art Fair and multiple group exhibitions at Thrown Contemporary, among others. Moreover, her pieces have been featured in a wide range of media outlets, from Ceramic Review and Elle Decoration, to the cover of The Guardian Feast magazine and the Evening Standard Magazine.
Bisila's Instagram - @bisilanoha
PHOEBE HO
Phoebe’s practice reflects the profound influence that metropolises and urban life, as well as the intricacies of human relationships, have on our personal growth and development. Drawing inspiration from the dynamic energy of a city, the diversity of cultures, and the shared experiences of urban dwellers, she delves into the intricate tapestry of our interconnected lives.
Central to her exploration is the profound impact of human relationships on our growth and self-discovery. Phoebe delves into the complexities of connections, whether they are fleeting encounters or lifelong bonds. The ebb and flow of these relationships mirror the rhythm of urban life, constantly evolving, shaping, and challenging us. Her work also delves into the concepts of memory and nostalgia, as she contemplates how our past experiences and the places we've called home continue to shape our present and future. Phoebe examines the traces and imprints left by the passage of time, exploring how these layers of history contribute to our understanding of self and place.
Phoebe is a graduate of the MA Design (Ceramics) program at Central Saint Martins. She has exhibited her work alongside fellow ceramicists and artists in a range of exhibitions across the UK and Hong Kong.
Phoebe's Instagram - @phoebeho__