What We Do
My practice is playful, experimental, and deeply personal. Whether through Pencils + Pens, Red Earthenware, Porcelain, Sketches, Wood, or Aluminium. Through my practice I am trying to capture some element of the materials, the passage of time, and the stories hidden in the everyday.
A Story of Pots + Pencils, Metal + Clay
My studio sits right in the heart of west Belfast, at St Comgall’s on Divis Street. Creatively my journey has been a pretty rich one: Born in England, of Irish parents, but growing up in Armagh. I later completed my degree in Fine & Applied Art in Belfast, followed by a Masters in Ceramics & Glass at the Royal College of Art, London. After a bit of travelling I returned home in 2002 to set up my studio at Priory Cottages in Benburb, County Tyrone.
I am a maker at heart, pottery is probably my first love, but with my pencil sketches of familiar Irish scenes, my life drawings, the playful Sketchy Thoughts, my porfolio of work is wide, and spans red earthenware, porcelain, wood, aluminium, and canvas — a broad, curious practice rooted in both craft and imagination. As John Cleese said, “Creativity is not a talent, it’s a way of operating.” I think I sit within that way of thinking!
Porcelain: Captured Memories
Our Captured Memories celebrate the beauty of Ireland and these British Isles, the portfolio of drawings stretches back over 30 years!
Each piece of hand-rolled porcelain is cut, ripped, and stamped here in our Belfast studio. No two pieces are ever the same. After their glaze firing, the landscape sketch decal is then carefully placed and fired onto the piece. Each of them has its own little bit of character, a timeless landscape, captured forever in porcelain.
Red Earthenware: Simple & Honest
Some of my best work is made with red earthenware. They’re playful pots that are often just sketched on the wheel, made in small batches, and probably never to be repeated. This space in our lower studio is a perfect spot for me to switch off a bit, to escape and relax, and I do think that’s often where the best work happens.
These pieces tend to be quite minimal, sometimes just a touch of slip or glaze, and I try to let the clay do the talking. Red earthenware’s natural texture, once fired, softens over time with use, which I really love. The glazes I use tend to move and settle in their own way, adding warmth and a bit of contrast. The pieces feel honest, tactile, and made to be lived with.
More recently, I’ve been adding sketches and scenes to the surfaces of these pieces. It’s something I’m just playing about with at the minute, and something that’s constantly evolving and changing.
Aluminium: Extraordinary from the Ordinary
My aluminium work is really about transformation, taking simple sketches and an everyday material and turning them into something more refined and, hopefully, a bit unexpected. It’s come through years of experimenting, figuring things out, and pushing the material, shaping aluminium into something that feels distinct and recognisably my own.
BELFAST Delft
Memory first, people second, play somewhere in the middle. This small experimental body of work is new territory for us at the studio.
My Belfast Delft takes its influence primarily from Dutch Delftware, that familiar blue and white imagery that’s probably sitting on a plate in your kitchen cupboard right now. These pieces tell stories through everyday scenes and tradition, they’re comfortable, easy on the eye. They bring me back to being a child, that sense of familiarity, that steadiness. Dutch Delftware itself was influenced by Chinese porcelain brought to Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. From there, that blue and white language spread across Europe, reshaping ceramics, and becoming something the Dutch made their own.
Those soft cobalt washes and quick, sketch-like marks have travelled a long way through history, and have now found their way here to the Lower Falls in Belfast, into our studio.
For now, I’m simply following a thread to see where it leads. Each piece starts with a memory, an imagined scene, or something somebody said. It’s shaped by what’s come before, by the work I’ve made, and by the images and stories around me. A lot of people have had a hand in it along the way, and it sits comfortably in that flow. It’s grounded here in Belfast, shaped by memory, carried by a sense of play, and I’m open to wherever it might go next.
So, watch this space…
Sketchy Thoughts: Fast, Playful, and a Bit Cheeky
Sketchy Thoughts is a pretty spontaneous body of work for me, quick iPad sketches made in baths, planes, cars, beaches, and anywhere thoughts appear. Each piece usually starts with a lyric, a moment, or a passing observation, and turns into something loose, colourful, and, hopefully, fairly honest.
I suppose it gently mocks the kind of “art” we see everywhere, while also poking a bit of fun at myself, my habits, my clichés, and my contradictions. It sits somewhere between parody and self-reflection, but it’s always rooted in real life. It’s fast, expressive, a little sarcastic at times, but there’s a sincerity in it too. It feels like a playful extension of what I already do, another layer to the ongoing mix of pots and pencils, metal and clay.