Ceramics at Snape Maltings

 

Set beside the River Alde, Snape Maltings offers an inspiring backdrop for contemporary craft. Surrounded by reed beds, wide skies and historic brick buildings, it is a place where creativity thrives. This exhibition brings together a diverse group of ceramic artists whose work ranges from delicate porcelain vessels to expressive sculptural forms, celebrating the extraordinary breadth and imagination within contemporary ceramics. 

Susie Bruce handcrafts delicate porcelain tiles and vessels that capture a whimsical sense of movement and tension. Fascinated by the point at which clay begins to collapse and bend, she works with thin porcelain slabs, deliberately exploring the moment where the material’s inherent fragility begins to shape the final form. Often finished with gold lustre in a third firing, her hand-built pieces balance elegance with spontaneity, revealing the subtle drama of clay in motion. 

 

Following his retirement in 2015, Don Hawkley dedicated himself fully to ceramics and sculpture. Working from the creative community at Butley Mills Studios, he produces large sculptural stoneware vessels and figures. Built with a strong architectural presence, his pieces are carefully fired multiple times using slips, glazes and oxides to create richly layered surfaces that combine structure with expressive texture. 

 

Moira Goodall creates individual contemporary vessels inspired by the colours, light and changing moods of the river and salt marshes overlooked by her studio. Each piece is hand-built using flattened coils and finished with pale slips that reflect the soft tones of the marsh landscape. Burnished to a satin sheen, the vessels are decorated with subtle textures made using found objects from beach and marsh. Rather than glaze, Moira uses ancient sawdust and smoke firing techniques, allowing fire and smoke to leave their unpredictable marks.  

 

Working from his rural Essex studio, Neville Tatham focuses on traditional slipware pottery rooted in historic European rural ceramics. His hand-thrown functional pots use local clays fired at earthenware temperatures, creating an environmentally conscious approach to making. The warmth of terracotta clay often shows through the glaze, providing a rich contrast between raw and decorated surfaces. Slip-trailed and incised decoration celebrates the visible process of making while honouring centuries-old pottery traditions.  

 

Janene Waudbys ceramics are deeply rooted in the natural world, particularly the wild seas and coastlines of the British Isles. Her pieces are thrown or hand-built and then burnished, textured with slips and oxides, and often marked by fire in ways that cannot be precisely controlled. Having spent a lifetime exploring the sea, walking, diving and sailing across oceans her work seeks to reflect the elemental forces of nature. Since becoming a full-time artist in 2016, and more recently settling on the Suffolk coast, Janene’s work has become an exploration of quiet, simplicity and collaboration with the elements 

Working from her studio in Felixstowe, Pat Todd creates functional bowls and ceramic wall pieces using porcelain and stoneware clays. Her work often blurs the boundary between pottery and painting, with surfaces treated like canvases where colour, texture and form interact to create expressive compositions. 

 

Ursula Stroh Reubens produces unique hand-built sculptural vessels that are biscuit fired and then finished through raku firing or smoking techniques. Through slips, pigments and fire, abstract references to birds, trees, skies and land emerge across the surfaces of her pots. Ursula studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, and her work is held in several notable collections including the Wilfrid Trust in Auckland, Gateshead Museum and the city collection in Dortmund, Germany. 

 

Honorary Member John Chipperfield is a founder member of the Suffolk Craft Society and an associate lecturer in Ceramic Design at Central Saint Martins. A versatile ceramicist, he employs a wide range of forming processes to create vessels including strongly asymmetrical jugs and shallow dishes. These forms become canvases for dramatic surface designs using bold coloured glazes. 

 

Honorary Member Pam Schomberg has been working in ceramics since graduating in 1985, initially training in printmaking before specialising in ceramics. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout Britain, France and Germany, and she has also produced commissioned collections for Saudi Arabia. Inspired by ancient artefacts, armour, glass and Egyptian sarcophagi, many of her pots are sculptural rather than functional. 

 

Kate Reynolds creates sculptural ceramics based on the human head and figure. Using profiles and silhouettes to form simple yet powerful shapes, she builds pieces that are expressive and direct. Kate also produces press-moulded platters and tiles decorated with slips and oxides, expanding her exploration of form and surface.