This week, The Plum Edit headed to Ceramic Art London, one of the most prestigious stages for ceramics.
Stepping into Ceramic Art London is like entering a living laboratory of human expression. This year, the air was thick with the scent of damp earth and the quiet hum of a community.
The event brings together veteran makers and fresh voices. This year, the fair showcased a stunning breadth of techniques-from traditional wheel throwing to experimental ecological philosophy.
While the fair pays homage to the traditional, many artists are now using the vessel as a mere starting point for complex structural engineering.
Toni Losey, a Canadian sculptor, exemplified this shift. Her work starts on the potter’s wheel, but quickly evolves into intricate, plant-like forms that mimic the delicate folds of high-fashion fabric. For Losey, the surface is as vital as the structure; she layers slips and glazes like a painter, creating a depth of color that feels more like a natural growth than a finished coating.
In contrast, other makers looked to the sleek silhouettes of the animal kingdom. We saw how a simple black Labrador could be distilled over time into a sgraffito masterpiece, using the ancient Italian technique of scratching through pigment to find the story hidden beneath the surface.
One of the most charming aspects of the fair was the infusion of character and narrative. Hannah Simpson’s Monster collection translates feelings into hand-built creatures, such as the grumpiness of an old accountant or the first-day jitters of meeting new people. Simpson’s work reminds us that ceramics are often a mirror of our own messy human emotions.
Similarly, street-inspired collections brought the grit of the city into the white-cube space. Such as Kim Sung Jin’s techniques that mimic graffiti-covered walls.
The fair also highlighted two distinct philosophical approaches to the craft. Former architects are trading blueprints for clay, utilising gravity as a design tool. By allowing tubes of clay to bend over rollers, they achieve a natural fluidity that rigid materials simply cannot replicate. At the cutting edge of the fair was a PhD project rooted in Eco-feminism. Rather than forcing the clay into a shape, the artist allowed the Scottish winds and winter frost to dictate the final form. This collaborative process with nature produces pieces that aren't just objects, but chronological records of the weather itself.
This year’s fair was a showcase of intent, it displayed a documentation of our environment, our history, and our hearts through the most fundamental material on earth.
Watch the full video here.
