The practice
Graham Matthews is a ceramic artist and maker, born in Leeds, Yorkshire, in 1960. Over a career spanning more than three decades, he has lived and worked in Leeds, Carlisle and Eastbourne, developing a practice rooted in the physical qualities of clay and an enduring interest in landscape, geology and the traditions of ceramic making.
His Eastbourne studio, The Clay Workshop, is both a working pottery and a teaching environment, where he continues to develop his own work alongside running classes and workshops for adults and children.
Graham’s early work grew from thrown and coiled vessels, including large garden pots, before moving towards functional domestic ware and increasingly sculptural forms. His work has continued to evolve through experimentation with different clays, slips, oxides, glazes and construction techniques.
A significant strand of his current practice is the Strata series: slab-built vessels and sculptural forms constructed from layered and inlaid clays and porcelain. The heavily grogged surfaces, contrasting clay bodies and torn or twisted edges evoke geological strata, eroded rock faces and the exposed surfaces of the landscape. Fired to high temperatures, the work combines a deliberately raw physicality with carefully developed surfaces of colour and texture.
Alongside this contemporary body of work, Graham maintains a longstanding fascination with Japanese ceramics, particularly the Oribe tradition and the distinctive processes and surfaces associated with raku. This influence can be seen in his use of colour, glaze, brushwork and an openness to the unpredictability of the firing process.
The result is a practice that moves freely between vessel and sculpture, function and abstraction, while remaining firmly grounded in the material nature of clay. Graham continues to make, experiment and develop the work from his Eastbourne studio.
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Artist statement
They put clay in my hands on a foundation course in the eighties. I started then, and I have never really put it down.
I enjoy working with clay. I like pushing it around, seeing what it will do and allowing the material to have a say in the finished piece. With experience, you learn how far you can take it.
My sculptural work is mainly slab-built. I work with oxides, stains and different clay bodies, often leaving the marks and accidents that happen during the making process. I enjoy that freedom — allowing the material and the process to influence the final form.
Making pots for use is a different discipline. Usually I have a shape in my head, sometimes beginning with a sketch. I work with both wheel-thrown and slab-built forms, sometimes faceting the surface to change the way the light catches it. My influences include Japanese and Korean ceramics, as well as the work and philosophy of Bernard Leach.
I am drawn to standing stones, ancient sites, pebbles and the marks left by time. I look at old pots and the ways they were made, and I often return to simple forms. Some of my favourite platters are among the most straightforward pieces I have made. Even the older work can still surprise me, particularly in the slips and surfaces.
The work has become looser and freer over time. I no longer worry so much about whether something will be accepted or fit a particular idea of what a pot should be. I cannot compete with IKEA, and I have no desire to. I just keep making.
If a pot gives someone a good feeling when they look at it, hold it or use it, that is enough for me.
I love making them, and I hope people enjoy looking at them and using them.
Exhibitions
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2025
The Collaborative Canvas Eastbourne
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2022
Crypt Gallery Seaford, East Sussex
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2019/20
Waterloo Gallery Alfriston, East Sussex
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2016–2019
Clay Workshop Open Studios Eastbourne
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2016
Hailsham Festival of Arts & Culture Woodside Annexe, Hellingly Centre, Hellingly
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2014/15
Courthouse Gallery Alfriston, East Sussex
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2013/14
West Dean / Friston East Sussex
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2006–present
Meads Xmas Show Eastbourne
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2005–2016
Lammas Festival Eastbourne
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2000–2012
Eastbourne Open Houses Eastbourne
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1998–2002
Exhibitions in Ditchling East Sussex
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1998
Hesketh Gallery Lewes
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1994–1998
Brighton Festival Open Houses Brighton
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1993
Slab Temple Pots Motcombe, Eastbourne
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1992
New Designers Islington, London
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1992
Cathedral Parsonage Carlisle
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1991
Raku Pots — Gallery Regalia Leeds