About
I have come to ceramics late in life, having spent over three decades working in the fashion industry. I started adult education classes in pottery in 1999 and quickly became obsessed with clay. I’m mainly self taught, I’ve attended several intensive courses, for example a week smoke-firing with Jane Perryman and a City and Guilds course at the City Lit with Robert Cooper and Dan Kelly.
My smoke-fired, Nerikomi Porcelain 'Vessels' are contemplative and sensual. They have a sense of calm and serenity and I hope a connection that will make the viewer want to touch and be drawn in.
My smoke-fired, Nerikomi Porcelain 'Vessels' are contemplative and sensual. They have a sense of calm and serenity and I hope a connection that will make the viewer want to touch and be drawn in.
Barbara Gittings’s combination of the ancient techniques of Nerikomi and smoke firing, alongside her unusual modern shapes, places her work in a unique position within the field of Nerikomi ceramics. Japanese Nerikomi often features very regular geometric repetition, whereas Barbara’s work embraces abstraction and asymmetry while still referencing the geometric. |
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FEATURED PUBLICATIONS
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Ceramic Review Issue303 May/June 2020 Masterclass
New Ceramics/Neue-Keramik Issue 4/2021 Profile
The Art Bridge, Edition VII artisteculture.com
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Ceramics Monthly Issue Feb 2022
House & Garden London Design Fair 2023
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Nerikomi,The Art of Coloured Clay, Thomas Hoadley, Herbert Press 2024
Cluster Crafts Soil Surface Sky 2021
Previous Shows/Exhibitions
2025
No Hard Shoulder, The Regency Town House, Brighton
Ceramic Art London, Olympia West, London
Craft In Evolution, London Craft Week, gallery@oxo
Patina Gallery, Group Show, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA,
Cambridge Contemporary Art, Group Show, Cambridge
2024
Radiance, Sladers Yard Gallery, Bridport, Dorset
New Maker Showcase, Contemporary Applied Arts, London
Barbara Gittings, Bircham Gallery, Holt
Oxford Ceramics Fair, St Edwards School, Oxford
Surface Decoration, Clay College Gallery, Stoke
Ceramic Art London, Olympia West, London
New Members Show, ContemporaryCeramics, London
2023
Grove Vale Ceramics, London
London Design Fair, London
Oxford Ceramics Fair, Oxford
2022
Potfest By The Lake, Compton Verney, Warwickshire
Bircham Gallery, Holt FestivalExhibition, Holt, Norfolk
Cambridge Contemporary Art, Cambridge
Oxford Ceramics Fair, Oxford
2021
Art in Clay Windsor
Celebrating Ceramics, Waterperry Gardens
Bircham Gallery, Joint Show Helen Terry, Barbara Gittings Holt
Oxford Ceramics Fair, Oxford
2019
Autumn Show Silson Contemporary, Harrogate
Art in Clay Hatfield
'A Pot In The Hand' Round House Gallery, Foston
'Imbalance' Artichoke Gallery, Ticehurst
2018
Sussex Guild Contemporary Craft Shows at Horsham, Michelham Priory and Bexhill
Art in Clay, Hatfield
2017
Interior Space gallery57.co.uk, Arundel
Chalk, Flint, Clay, Shore at Gallery57, Arundel
Sussex Guild shows at Michelham Priory & Midhurst
2016
MADE Bloomsbury, London
Emerging Potters Show at Bils & Rye Gallery
Innovations in Ceramic Art, Cambridge
2013 - 2019
Artists Open House at 9A Hove Place, Brighton, May & Nov/Dec
No Hard Shoulder, The Regency Town House, Brighton
Ceramic Art London, Olympia West, London
Craft In Evolution, London Craft Week, gallery@oxo
Patina Gallery, Group Show, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA,
Cambridge Contemporary Art, Group Show, Cambridge
2024
Radiance, Sladers Yard Gallery, Bridport, Dorset
New Maker Showcase, Contemporary Applied Arts, London
Barbara Gittings, Bircham Gallery, Holt
Oxford Ceramics Fair, St Edwards School, Oxford
Surface Decoration, Clay College Gallery, Stoke
Ceramic Art London, Olympia West, London
New Members Show, ContemporaryCeramics, London
2023
Grove Vale Ceramics, London
London Design Fair, London
Oxford Ceramics Fair, Oxford
2022
Potfest By The Lake, Compton Verney, Warwickshire
Bircham Gallery, Holt FestivalExhibition, Holt, Norfolk
Cambridge Contemporary Art, Cambridge
Oxford Ceramics Fair, Oxford
2021
Art in Clay Windsor
Celebrating Ceramics, Waterperry Gardens
Bircham Gallery, Joint Show Helen Terry, Barbara Gittings Holt
Oxford Ceramics Fair, Oxford
2019
Autumn Show Silson Contemporary, Harrogate
Art in Clay Hatfield
'A Pot In The Hand' Round House Gallery, Foston
'Imbalance' Artichoke Gallery, Ticehurst
2018
Sussex Guild Contemporary Craft Shows at Horsham, Michelham Priory and Bexhill
Art in Clay, Hatfield
2017
Interior Space gallery57.co.uk, Arundel
Chalk, Flint, Clay, Shore at Gallery57, Arundel
Sussex Guild shows at Michelham Priory & Midhurst
2016
MADE Bloomsbury, London
Emerging Potters Show at Bils & Rye Gallery
Innovations in Ceramic Art, Cambridge
2013 - 2019
Artists Open House at 9A Hove Place, Brighton, May & Nov/Dec
Technique
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I embrace inexactness and experiment in my process, blending precise technique with a loose and casual application. The elemental uncertainty of working with clay, especially the random and uncontrolled shifts and reactions that take place when creating pattern through the clay, is inspiring. I see my work as the manifestation of a thousand transitions.
I'm fascinated by the geometry in nature, especially as growth and random chaotic forces such as weathering, sedimentation and erosion skew and distort the initial perfect symmetry. I'm constantly exploring these balances between symmetry and asymmetry, perfection and imperfection, the line between order and chaos and the juxtaposition between control and spontaneity in my work. Nature can be enigmatic and one is instinctively trying to decipher its unknowable qualities. Images and patterns sink into the subconscious, to be released when one engages with the clay and the submerged information emerges to dictate the work in progress. I’m drawn to irregular repetition, primitive mark making and soft, earthy colours. |
