Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections

Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections Joanna Bird shows quality work from international contemporary ceramic, glass and conceptual artists.

Dynamic synergy contrasts ground breaking innovative work and the traditional. Joanna Bird, formally a potter herself, trained at Goldsmiths College and then with Michael Cardew in the 1970s. She spent several months working at Shebbear with Clive Bowen and Philip Leach before setting up her own workshop in Devon. When she married she moved to London and set up her own gallery (Joanna Bird Pottery

). She has established her reputation as a gallerist over the past eighteen years. Joanna shows ceramics internationally and has participated in many exhibitions in the UK and America. She works with potters on commissions, collaborates with museums and architects, advises on acquisitions and is at present working with a young artist developing a new ceramics gallery at Chatsworth. Joanna has lectured at the V&A Museum on Collecting Ceramics and is working on a series of lectures to be given in America. She recently curated an exhibition of Elizabeth Fritsch at the Fine Art Society in London, and is now curating a challenging exhibition at the Sir John Soane Museum, in which four artists; Christie Brown, Carina Ciscato, Nick Rena and Clare Twomey are invited to respond to the life and work of Sir John Soane. The touring exhibition, opening at the Sir John Soane Museum and moving on to Port Eliot and Pitzhanger Manor is funded by the Arts Council.

It is not easy to write about fine art, especially when describing a medium as immediately physical and as intuitively t...
25/08/2026

It is not easy to write about fine art, especially when describing a medium as immediately physical and as intuitively tangible as ceramics. There is a tendency in the art world to over-complicate, to fall back onto abstract ‘art-speak’ when an artwork often can, and should, speak for itself.

It is a delight, then, when a piece does exactly that. Sales Pitch, is one of Perry’s earliest word-based works. The entire surface of the dish is given over to a single, unbroken monologue, a stream of consciousness where the artist is selling the viewer on the very piece they are looking at. Equal parts satire and confession, the text moves from brash self-promotion to a candid admission of financial need, laying bare the mechanics of the art market with characteristic wit.

Reflecting on the piece, Perry has said:

Right from my very earliest ceramics I used words a lot. I found it easier to be funny with words but I enjoyed the look of text as well. This plate is a kind of minimalist joke, an artwork trying to sell itself. Looking back thirty years it all still rings true. I was a cocky bastard. I love the tone of desperation that creeps in towards the end; I really needed the cash to buy my next motorbike. Sales pitch represents my manifesto; it is a very important piece.

And so there is not much more to say, except to leave you with the piece above. It appears that Grayson has done my job for me. What do you think?

If you would like to get in touch about the piece, please email us at [email protected]

29/07/2026

We are delighted to present our next exhibition, A Sense of Perspective, which will run from 9 - 26 September 2026.

The four artists of this exhibition, Emmanuel Boos, Carina Ciscato, Florian Gadsby and Sara Moorhouse, each bring a distinctive design sensibility to their practice, being well versed in site-specific commissions, installations, furniture and graphic design.

Experience the works as they might be lived with, thoughtfully arranged in the intimate setting of the gallery, and discover how they could transform and enrich your own surroundings.

The gallery will be open from 10 - 5 Tuesday to Saturday and otherwise by appointment. For more information and to register your interest, please email [email protected]






12/05/2026

Michael O’Brien is one of the most influential yet least known figures in studio ceramics history. A peer of Bernard Leach and Michael Cardew, he took over the Abuja Pottery after Cardew’s retirement and has mentored some of the most celebrated names in studio ceramics, including Ladi Kwali, Magdalene Odundo and Danlami Aliyu.

At 95, Michael is still innovating. He has recently invented a new range of glazes using Nigerian materials that could revolutionise the glazed stoneware tradition in West Africa. Michael O’Brien: The Unsung Hero is the first documentary to capture his life’s work, his expertise, and the ongoing legacy of Anglo-Nigerian pottery.

Learn more about Michael’s story and how you can donate through the link in bio.

If you know a potter, collector, or fellow lover of craft who should hear about Michael, feel free to share this trailer!

MEET THE MAKER | FRANCIS LLOYD-JONES | COLLECT 2026Perhaps Francis Lloyd-Jones refined his sensibility for rhythm and fo...
01/03/2026

MEET THE MAKER | FRANCIS LLOYD-JONES | COLLECT 2026

Perhaps Francis Lloyd-Jones refined his sensibility for rhythm and form during his training at Thomastown, Ireland, or as an apprentice to Lisa Hammond MBE. Likely it has its roots much earlier: his mother and grandfather werer both successful potters themselves. This early education, immersed in the language of objects, has given Francis’ work a subtle novelty that is at one recognisable and refreshingly new.

His work, domestic ware that is intended to embellish life, is often salt-glazed and reduction-fired, lending it a tender strength and a mellow depth that retains an air of mystery. His pieces reveal themselves slowly. They must be felt, held through a lifetime of use, to be understood and enjoyed thoroughly.

Francis currently works as the resident potter at the Farmers’ Arms in Cumbria. A subsidiary of Grisedale Arts, it has become an acclaimed and influential model for a new kind of art institution, underpinned by the philosophy that art should benefit the wider community.

Francis’ work is currently on show at our stand S10 at Collect Art Fair.

Some words I wrote about Gregory Warren Wilson’s work for at 2026.Collect is on until Sunday 1st March, so come and se...
28/02/2026

Some words I wrote about Gregory Warren Wilson’s work for at 2026.

Collect is on until Sunday 1st March, so come and see the work for yourselves!

A frame is often, by nature, marginal. It compliments, decorates and adorns, but rarely is it integral to the work of art within. Yet for Gregory Warren Wilson’s works in glass, his deep, bespoke frames are an essential and ubiquitous feature. Each frame serves as an arena, a theatre, in which the two vital qualities of glass, light and colour, can play and interact in novel ways. Layers of hand-cut glass, sometimes as many as six, are arranged so that the light penetrates and refracts in three dimensions, turning the two-dimensional nature of a framed image on its head. One can think of Gregory’s work as a sculpture, the frame an intrinsic part of its architecture.

Gregory is also an award-winning poet, having published six collections to date. Many of his pieces unfold from a fragment of poetry to become abstract, figurative works in their own right. What is striking about Gregory’s pieces is that they retain a narrative quality. Rhythmic yet asymmetrical, moving but still, they are a landscape in which the interplay of colour and light plays out like an event. Light and shade seem to dance as the eye travels, and the darkest colours often glow with the greatest intensity. It is this experience of perspective, of the subjectivity of light and colour, that Gregory wants us to think about. Can the subjective and objective ever be reconciled?

MEET THE MAKER | HALIMA CASSELL | COLLECT 2026Born in 1975 in Pakistan, Halima’s multicultural background is tangibly pr...
27/02/2026

MEET THE MAKER | HALIMA CASSELL | COLLECT 2026

Born in 1975 in Pakistan, Halima’s multicultural background is tangibly present in her work. A natural creativity presented itself at an early age and was nurtured to fruition through an undergraduate degree in 1997 and an MA in 2002. Since then, she was appointed an MBE in 2021 for Services to Art. She is also an Elected Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculpture.

The culmination of this education is Halima’s precociously mature work. Fusing her Asian roots with a fascination for Mughal and African pattern work and a passion for architectural geometry, Halima’s work is intense yet playful, structured yet dynamic; substantial yet fluid and invariably compelling in its originality.

In Halima’s work she combines strong geometric elements with recurrent patterns and architectural principles, strong lines and dramatic angles. Halima concentrates on simple forms as the basis of her work in order to maximise the impact of the complex contours of the patterned surface.

Hattori Makiko (Born 1984) is a Japanese ceramic based in Gifu, Japan. She works in Seto porcelain, covering her forms w...
27/02/2026

Hattori Makiko (Born 1984) is a Japanese ceramic based in Gifu, Japan. She works in Seto porcelain, covering her forms with tens of thousands of minute porcelain ribbons to tightly fill the surface of the entire pot and its interior. This work is so fastidiously covered in clay that it take six months to effectively dry and as such Makiko produces only eight to ten works per year. She prefers to work in a meditative state on this repetitive procedure.

Makiko says this about her work:

I would be happy if the audience can immediately be drawn into the work before any other explanation because of the visual and tactile impact of the surface.
The work involves a repetitive process, nonetheless I never get tired with this Zen-like operation. I confront this long procedure with a very relaxed transcendent state of mind.

Come and enjoy the amazing array of artworks on show at Collect 2026. We look forward to seeing you at Stand S10 in the Portico Rooms.

MEET THE MAKER | MATTHEW WARNER | COLLECT 2026Matthew Warner completed his BA at Camberwell College of Art in 2010, befo...
26/02/2026

MEET THE MAKER | MATTHEW WARNER | COLLECT 2026

Matthew Warner completed his BA at Camberwell College of Art in 2010, before going on to study under Julian Stair as a QEST Scholar.

His work takes inspiration from the 18th-century potter Josiah Wedgwood, and seeks to explore how perceptions of status and luxury are reinforced through objects. He is particularly interested in the social connotations of pots throughout history, and in how they have been deployed to promote ideas of class, power, and even moral understanding.

‘Pots fascinate me because they embody and articulate so much information about society and culture. They are relics or signals of taste, social behaviour and cultural history. Their forms are incredibly diverse and at the same time carry a universal understanding. These everyday objects span social divides and convey very concentrated messages about their environment. I am particularly interested in the social connotations of these objects throughout history and more specifically how they have been deployed to promote ideas of class, power, and even moral understanding.’

MEET THE MAKER | ADAM BUICK | COLLECT 2026Adam Buick’s work focuses on perfecting the singular, universal foundation of ...
26/02/2026

MEET THE MAKER | ADAM BUICK | COLLECT 2026

Adam Buick’s work focuses on perfecting the singular, universal foundation of his practice, the Korean moon jar, the perfect symmetry of which denotes Confucian ideals of simplicity, humbleness and purity. Yet, for Adam, the moon jar form is not an end in itself, but rather a canvas, a world onto which he maps a deeply personal exploration of how humans make sense of the landscape in which they live.

For Adam, this landscape is the St David’s peninsula in his native Pembrokeshire, where he continues to live and work today. Having originally studied Archaeology, Adam is an innovator in incorporating locally sourced materials into his work, clay dug from the moors of Waun Llodi, sand and stone from the beach, even bone fragments. In this, each of Adam’s pieces is completely unique with its own history and geology. Adam has produced many installations in which his beloved landscape plays an active role in their creation, leaving pieces out on the beach and mountainside to be gently transformed by rain, mist and wind. The Welsh concept of Cynefin encapsulates this profound sense of physical, cultural and spiritual belonging.

Collect is on until Sunday 1st March, with Previews starting today!

Photo credit: .co.uk
Words: .of.hp

MEET THE MAKER | FLORIAN GADSBY | COLLECT 2026Florian Gadsby has studied under some of the household names of contempora...
25/02/2026

MEET THE MAKER | FLORIAN GADSBY | COLLECT 2026

Florian Gadsby has studied under some of the household names of contemporary ceramics. Having trained in Thomastown, Ireland, he later went on to apprentice under Lisa Hammond MBE at Maze Hill Pottery London, and under Ken Matsuzaki in Mashiko, Japan. Florian says this education in the Studio Pottery tradition taught him the discipline it takes to run a successful studio, often working over 80 hours over a six-day week.

An accomplished thrower, he specialises in making functional ceramics for daily use. His finely turned architectural style is exactingly precise and rigorously refined, resulting in light, angular forms of a quiet sensibility. He often complements his pieces with feldspathic, reduction-fired glazes which produce a soothing and rich crystalline effect.

Today, Florian innovatively documents his meticulous process online, and in doing so has garnered a following of millions and engaged a generation of new audiences in the question of what it means to be a craftsperson in the modern age. He recently published his first book, By My Hands: A Potter’s Apprenticeship.

Florian is part of a panel discussion, Bridging Craft to the Public, as part of this Friday 16:00. His installation, Still Life I, is on display at our stand S10 in the Portico Rooms.

Photo credit:
Words by .of.hp

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