Eddie Curtis studied ceramics at Bath Academy of Art (1973-76). In 1979 he established a studio at Middle Rigg where he and his wife Margaret continue to work today. The studio’s output was oven to tableware, but a stretch of coastline near his home inspired The Blast Series, a body of work he has since shown throughout the UK and Europe. In 2014 he exhibited his sculptural works in New Delhi, followed by group shows in New York and Tokyo. In 2017 he was one of 30 international artists in the exhibition Meister der Moderne (Modern Masters) in Munich.

Edmund de Waal is an internationally acclaimed artist and writer, best known for his large-scale installations of porcelain vessels. His interventions have been made for diverse spaces and museums worldwide, including the British Museum, London, The Frick Collection, New York, and the V&A, London. He is also renowned for his bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), and The White Road (2015). His third book, Letters to Camondo, was published in 2021, the same year de Waal was awarded a CBE for his services to the arts as a potter and writer.

Elizabeth Fritsch initially studied music at Birmingham School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music from 1958-64 before studying ceramics at the Royal College of Art, where she received the Herbert Read Memorial Prize silver medal for her thesis. After leaving the RCA in 1971 she worked at the Bing and Gröndahl factory in Copenhagen. In 1985 she set up her own studio in London, and in 1987 was chosen for the Bernard Leach Centenary Post Office Stamp issue with Hans Coper and Lucie Rie. Throughout her career Fritsch’s work has been widely exhibited and is represented in museums and collections worldwide. She was awarded the CBE in 1995.

Emma Rodgers is passionate about art education. She is an honorary fellow of Liverpool John Moores University and a patron of charities as she believes it is vital to engage and connect with communities. She works in various scales and media and aims to push the boundaries of materials from clay to bronze to steel. Her creations are inspired by nature, whether flora or fauna, and to capture the moment she focuses on movement and energy, whether it be powerful, delicate, tender or disturbing. Her work is featured in several major international public and private collections.

Emmanuel Cooper (1938 – 2012) was a distinguished craftsman, writer, teacher, editor and LGBTQ activist. A potter of international standing, his work is represented in many public and private collections, both in the UK and overseas. The author of nearly 30 books, he was also the founder and editor of Ceramic Review, one of the world’s leading craft magazines. For over a decade Cooper was visiting professor on the Ceramics & Glass programme at London’s Royal College of Art. He was awarded an OBE for services to art in the 2002 New Year Honours.

Felicity Aylieff is an artist of international standing, recognised for her innovation in large-scale ceramics. Having graduated from Bath Academy of Art in 1978, she went on to teach ceramics at Bath Spa University until 2001 when she began lecturing at the Royal College of Art and where she is currently professor of Ceramics & Glass. In 2007, an artist residency in Jingdezhen, China, saw the beginning of a series of monumental pots, the largest of which stands five metres high, pushing the porcelain to its material limits.

Fernando Casasempere was born in Santiago, Chile, and trained at Scola Forma and Escuela de Arte y Oficios, Barcelona. He has lived in London since 1997. He works with clay, ceramic and industrial matter and is renowned for monumental installations. He has exhibited widely in the UK, Chile, North America, Japan and Europe. Fascinated with the imprint left by humans on the earth, Casasempere draws on archaeology, geology, landscape and architecture to subvert sculptural archetypes, while speaking to urgent global ecological and social concerns through the lens of his native Chile.

Born in Norfolk, Florian Gadsby was educated at a Rudolf Steiner School, gaining expert tuition from pottery teacher Caroline Hughes and later taking a work placement at the Leach Pottery in St Ives, assisting Jack Doherty. He went on to be a studio apprentice for Lisa Hammond at Maze Hill Pottery. While there, he met Japanese master potter Ken Matsuzaki and later he became his visiting apprentice in Mashiko, Japan. Gadsby learnt how to use the traditional Japanese kick-wheel alongside how to glaze in both the oribe and shino styles and how to fire them. He set up his London studio in 2018.

Grayson Perry is a great chronicler of contemporary life, tackling subjects that are universally human: identity, gender, social status, sexuality, religion. Autobiographical references can be read in tandem with questions about décor and decorum, class and taste, and the status of the artist versus that of the artisan. His work comments on society, its pleasures as well as its injustices and flaws, and explores a variety of historical and contemporary themes. Working with ceramics, cast iron, bronze, printmaking and tapestry, Perry is interested in how each historic category of object accrues intellectual and emotional baggage over time.

Halima Cassell is one of the UK’s most distinctive ceramicists and sculptors. Born in Kashmir, brought up in Manchester and now living in Shropshire, her work is influenced by her multicultural heritage, as well as her travels to Japan, Italy and Pakistan. Her sculptures have won numerous awards and are held in collections worldwide. Inspired by geometry, architecture and nature, Cassell creates deeply carved forms in unglazed ceramic, bronze, stone, wood, concrete and cast glass. Her work is instantly recognisable due to her bold designs, crisp carving and intuitive understanding of how to integrate pattern, form, material and scale.

Hannah McAndrews passion for clay began when she discovered the material’s seductive properties as a student, and it has been her driving force ever since. The essential elements of her work come from a love of pots with a purpose – pots for use in the home – and while preserving functionality is of paramount importance, she explores her own distinctive approach to decoration. A jug might be a vessel for holding liquid, but may also be brought into the home simply because it is a thing of beauty.

Hannah Tounsend is a ceramacist and printmaker based in Rutland. She combines the disciplines of throwing and slip-casting to make elegant hybrid vessels. In recent years, she has re-examined the meticulous tests and record-keeping that underpin her ceramic surfaces. Her practice has widened to include artworks and vessel groupings that celebrate extensive material testing that bring to the exhibition space an aspect of the maker’s process often unseen outside the studio.

Hitomi Hosono’s ceramics are rooted in both Japanese and European traditions. Before arriving in the UK, she studied Kutani pottery in Japan and ceramic product design in Denmark. She then completed an MA in Ceramics & Glass at the Royal College of Art, London, from 2007-09. Her detailed porcelain vessels reference the natural world and botanical specimens. The work captivates with its delicacy and has attracted the patronage of curators from the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum.