Contemporary
Alison has represented some of the world’s finest Contemporary Ceramic Artists for over 20 years.
Today she represents Peter Beard and Heidi Warr.
Peter Beard
Peter is one of the most well respected and accomplished Ceramicists in the UK. Widley exhibited in International Exhibitions and Museum Collections he is a distinguished member of the Craft Council having previously been the Chairman and has been awarded many medals and awards for his work.
In his own words:
“I have a contemplative approach to making and spend a lot of time drawing lines and sketching out ideas for new pieces. This approach eventually produces beautiful, considered objects that are contemporary but which owe an allegiance to history, giving them a timeless quality. My strong simple shapes are decorated with complex surfaces to complement the form and excite the eye, drawing an emotional response from the viewer.
My wax-resist pieces involve combinations of shiny, matt and semi-matt glazes built up in layers to create their textural surfaces during firing. Wax is used to isolate areas during glaze application.
I also make ground pieces. The technique here involves the layering of coloured clays and glaze and then grinding back the glazed surface to reveal intricate patterns within a silky smooth marble-like finish which is beautifully tactile. These pieces can take up to six months to complete and are the culmination of hours of experimentation and development.”
Heidi Warr
Heidi Warr is a British Ceramic Artist and Designer.
She trained at Art College and when she left Dennis China Works in 2012 she was the principle decorator.
Heidi launched her own studio the same year and has created some outstanding designs utilising traditional techniques such as sgraffito and tube-lining. Her work won immediate acclaim and has since been exhibited in Museums and represented by leading Ceramic Dealers. She has also been invited to be the artist in residence at “Art, Antiques London” one of the most prestigious art and design fairs in the UK.
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Stock for sale
PB37
Peter Beard Vase with an Inverted Rim in a Manganese Wax Resist Glaze
2024
20cm x 16cm
PB35
Peter Beard Vase with an Inverted rim with a “Dash” Design in a Wax Resist Glaze
2024
24cm high, 15cm wide
PB 34
Peter Beard Vase with an Inverted Rim with a textured glaze
2024
25cm high, 15cm wide
PB33
Peter Beard Undulating Vase in a Wax Resist Glaze
2024
19cm high, 14cm wide, 12 cm deep
PB 32
Large Peter Beard Vase with a Dark Blue Cobalt Wax Resist Glaze on a Carved Vessel
2024
35cm high, 17cm wide
Heidi Warr Tessellated Rhythms Vase
Large Sphere, 10” edition of 2 £sold out
Medium Sphere, 7” edition of 9 £ sold out
Small Sphere, 5” edition of 9 £ sold out
Heidi Writes:
I am very proud to introduce my design: Tessellated Rhythms. The Tessellated Rhythms is a hand thrown spherical vessel with an interlinking tessellated design inspired by the power of the ocean.
Tessellation designs originated thousands of years ago, some dating back as far as 4000BC when they were used to decorate walls with tiles.
Essentially tessellation designs use repeated geometric shapes to form a pattern. Similarly sized shapes easily sit together, whereas producing a design with varying sizes requires much more skill and thought.
Many artists have used tessellation designs as a basis for the artwork they create. One of my particular influences, M.C. Escher, used them to amazing effect.
In the Tessellated Rhythms design I wanted to create a tessellated design that also appears as a visual illusion. In my design I wanted to capture the ebb and flow of the ocean, so I created the interlocking shapes decorated with carefully applied slip trailing and incised straight lines to create movement and sense of flow. I wanted the design to reflect the soft undulations of a large expansive ocean; subtle, rhythmic, enchanting and powerful.
Heidi Warr
Flight of the Bombus Charger 16” edition of 5 £sold out
Available in Blue £1800 (awaiting image)
Heidi Writes:
he Flight of the Bombus (Latin name for bumblebees) design is inspired by nature and conveys the resilience we need in life to succeed. I have created stylised bumblebees emerging from the centre of a geometric world.
Bumblebees are intriguing to watch, busily going about their business with a sense of commitment and purpose as they pursue their goals. I was inspired to capture the world of the humble bumblebee.
For the Flight of the Bombus design I drew inspiration from the works of Mc Escher. Many of his black and white creations involve a stunning level of geometric detail and convey a wonderful sense of movement. Those were aspects I sought to capture in my design; detail and movement.
The Flight of the Bombus design is based on geometric spirals emanating from the centre of my hand thrown charger. In my design the charger represents the world. Each flowing spiral represents the life of the bumblebees as they busily track back and forth from their hive. I wanted to capture the essence of their commitment and unwavering purpose. True qualities we all admire.
When creating the Flight of the Bombus design I utilised segmented sections alternating in contrast within the flowing spirals to convey a wonderful sense of movement within the piece.
Heidi Warr, Blue Orbiting Waves
Large Spherical Vase 12” edition of 1 £sold out
Medium Spherical Vase 7”, edition of 9 £740
Small Spherical Vase 5”, edition of 9 £sold out
Heidi Writes:
I am very pleased to introduce my design: Geometric Web. The Geometric Web is a hand thrown spherical vase with the application of extremely detailed slip-trailing to create an undulating spider’s web.
The inspiration for this design evolved as I walked around our garden at home in our sleepy Somerset town. It was early in the morning and the sun was just beginning to show its hand for a new day and all around the garden were spider’s webs encased with the morning dew. They glistened in the early sunlight of the new day and the dew accentuated the amazing workmanship that those busy spiders had been engaging in.
I was intrigued to learn that spider webs have an interesting significance, they can symbolise how we weave our life together. It reminded me that we all have choices in the life that we construct.
One of the challenges in this design was achieving the fine intricacy of the slip-trailing. Slip-trailing is not easy, as some of you may be aware, but prefect execution was necessary to ensure the design looked faultless when inspected closely.
A further design challenge was to create a sense of movement within the design, like the spider webs we see in nature, gently rising and falling on the breeze. I thought carefully how to create the sense of movement I was seeking and an interlocking design seemed to work perfectly.
Heidi Warr, Blue Orbiting Waves
Large Spherical Vase 7”, edition of 9 £740 - limited number remaining
Small Spherical Vase 5”, edition of 9 £sold out
Heidi Writes:
I am very pleased to introduce my design: Geometric Web. The Geometric Web is a hand thrown spherical vase with the application of extremely detailed slip-trailing to create an undulating spider’s web.
The inspiration for this design evolved as I walked around our garden at home in our sleepy Somerset town. It was early in the morning and the sun was just beginning to show its hand for a new day and all around the garden were spider’s webs encased with the morning dew. They glistened in the early sunlight of the new day and the dew accentuated the amazing workmanship that those busy spiders had been engaging in.
I was intrigued to learn that spider webs have an interesting significance, they can symbolise how we weave our life together. It reminded me that we all have choices in the life that we construct.
One of the challenges in this design was achieving the fine intricacy of the slip-trailing. Slip-trailing is not easy, as some of you may be aware, but prefect execution was necessary to ensure the design looked faultless when inspected closely.
A further design challenge was to create a sense of movement within the design, like the spider webs we see in nature, gently rising and falling on the breeze. I thought carefully how to create the sense of movement I was seeking and an interlocking design seemed to work perfectly.
Heidi Warr “Geometric Webb”
Hand Thrown Globe Vases in 3 sizes:
Large 12” Sphere, edition of 1 £sold out
Medium 7” Sphere, edition of 9, £770 - last few remaining
Small 5” Sphere, edition of 9 £sold out
Heidi Writes:
I am very pleased to introduce my design: Geometric Web. The Geometric Web is a hand thrown spherical vase with the application of extremely detailed slip-trailing to create an undulating spider’s web.
The inspiration for this design evolved as I walked around our garden at home in our sleepy Somerset town. It was early in the morning and the sun was just beginning to show its hand for a new day and all around the garden were spider’s webs encased with the morning dew. They glistened in the early sunlight of the new day and the dew accentuated the amazing workmanship that those busy spiders had been engaging in.
I was intrigued to learn that spider webs have an interesting significance, they can symbolise how we weave our life together. It reminded me that we all have choices in the life that we construct.
One of the challenges in this design was achieving the fine intricacy of the slip-trailing. Slip-trailing is not easy, as some of you may be aware, but prefect execution was necessary to ensure the design looked faultless when inspected closely.
A further design challenge was to create a sense of movement within the design, like the spider webs we see in nature, gently rising and falling on the breeze. I thought carefully how to create the sense of movement I was seeking and an interlocking design seemed to work perfectly.
Heidi Warr Butterfly Vase
Slab Built in Two Sizes
Large Vase, 17” high, 6” wide £1782
Small Vase 9.25” high £800
Heidi Writes:
The Butterflies tower is based on the “butterflies” design by one of my favourite artists, MC Escher (1898-1972). Escher is probably most well known for his seemingly impossible black and white drawings such as Castle in the Sky, Balcony, Waterfall, Relativity and Belvedere.
Escher is one of the great artists who managed to combine symbolism and fantasy with real life. Many of his works depict natural objects in an unnatural way and yet they are compelling to look at and excite our eye.
I chose to use Escher’s “butterflies” because butterflies to me convey a beauty of form, bursting forth with such colour and force from their cocoons. They are light and graceful and when used in the right way can create real beauty in art. With this piece I wanted to convey the feeling of freedom, just like the freedom I imagine could be felt by the butterflies as they move from their restrictive cocoons and into the wide blue skies.
It was challenging to use and adapt Escher’s original design to suit my application. In particular I needed to recreate the geometric pattern to suit the edges of the top of the towers.
I initially experimented with tubing the design on to the butterfly towers but found that it made the butterflies lose some of their crispness and clarity. Tubing them also seemed to give them the appearance of being less graceful and ethereal. For this reason I decided to execute all the detail with a brush.
“Flight of Freedom”
A Heidi Warr Monochrome Charger
14”
Available in a black on white or white on black colourway - in an edition of 5
Heidi writes:
The Flight of Freedom design incorporates the influence of M.C. Escher. In this design I have created stylised birds breaking free from an interlinking geometric pattern.
The inspiration for this piece developed as I reflected on the thoughts and feelings that arise when we contemplate making important decisions in life. Sometimes we don’t know how things might turn out, but when we take a leap of faith and the outcome is positive there is a real sense of freedom, like shaking off shackles and being able to fly freely.
Birds are often used to symbolise freedom and new beginnings and it was the sense of elation after breaking free and soaring high that I wanted to capture.
Cafe Wall
Optical Illusion Slab-Built Vase
Large Vase 17” high, 6” wide £1266
Small Vase 9.25” high £666
Writes Heidi:
I have always loved visual illusions. I like the way they tease you and play with your mind and imagination.
About the same time that I was having dreams of creating my own designs and ceramic art range, my fiancé finished a psychology degree. It was whilst he was studying a module on visual illusions that he showed me the Cafe Wall design. I was intrigued and he explained how it worked.
The illusion works because of how cells in our eyes are stimulated by light. The white and black areas create a sharp contrast and our brains think that the activity from our eye cells means there is a sloping edge to the bricks. That is why the grey mortar line has to be just right or the illusion loses its strength.
This illusion shows that our brains could be ‘tricked’ into seeing something that was not there. For me this was the meaning of this piece; it reminds us very vividly that what we see is not always as it appears.
The large towers are 17” high by 6” wide at the base and 4” wide at the top (all measurements are approximate).
Peter Beard
A Large Disc in a Wax Resist Glaze mounted on Welsh Slate
40cm high, 31cm wide, 10.5cm deep
"My wax-resist pieces involve combinations of shiny, matt and semi-matt glazes built up in layers to create their textural surfaces during firing. Wax is used to isolate areas during glaze application".
Peter is widely represented in International museums and Important Private collections and Was awarded an Important Commission for the ceramic pieces for the Gold Medal winning Monaco Garden, Chelsea Flower Show 2011.
He has exhibited at the Royal Academy and has won numerous prizes for his work including:
Winner of silver medal at XVIII International Biennial of Ceramic Art, Vallauris, France.
Winner of the Pot d’Or at Keramisto, Holland.
Winner of the INAX Design Prize, INAX Corporation, Japan.
He is an Elected Member of the Academy of International Ceramicists and the Council of Craft Potters, UK
Collaboration Piece - Celtic Cross
A collaboration between AD antiques, Heidi Warr and the Guild of Handicrafts
These are special commissioned pieces for AD Antiques. They are a collaboration with Hart Gold and Silversmiths of Chipping Campden.
Hart Gold and Silversmiths are known around the world for their amazing handcrafted work with gold and sliver. The company dates back to the early 1900’s when their founder, George Hart, joined the Guild of Handicrafts which was formed by Charles Ashbee in 1888. By passing on the skills necessary down the generations, the company continue to produce some of the world’s finest gold and silver handcrafted treasures.
Heidi writes “I was thrilled to have the opportunity and privilege of working with Hart Gold and Silversmiths to produce this incredible piece.
The design I created for these special pieces is a Celtic Cross. I have been intrigued by Celtic Crosses since seeing them in Cornwall where they nestle in the landscape. Viewing them in their natural surroundings felt like travelling back in time.
I was inspired by the different meanings attributed to the cross and circle. Some sources say the cross and circle symbolise Christianity and God’s love. Others say they circle is a Pagan symbol and the cross is the Christian symbol. In my design I have used the cross to symbolise Christianity and the circle to symbolise Pagan traditions. I wanted this piece to represent a celebration of these two different beliefs. To develop the idea as a celebration of difference, I included a snake in the design which I used to represent temptations that are common to us all regardless of our belief.
The design challenge I set myself was to create a Celtic Cross made up of Celtic Knot-work. I wanted the design to be recognisable from a distance, just like Celtic Crosses are in their natural surroundings, yet superbly detailed when viewed up close. The knot-work design has been repeated on the solid silver lid created by the wonderful craftsmen at Hart Gold and Silversmiths. Integrated into the design on the silver lid are four circles of Abalone.”
53cm high and 12cm at the base.
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