British ceramicist Anna Thomson creates lighting and vessels for interiors. Balancing design, craft and materials to create award-winning pieces that explore the intrinsic qualities of vitreous clay bodies together with the possibilities of new technologies and industrial techniques within a craft context.
Working from her home studio in Sussex Anna designs and makes her collections of lighting and vessels, enjoying working closely with clients on commissions for interiors as well as selling through galleries. Lighting installations showcase the gentle translucencies of porcelain, parian and bone china, the forms accentuated by harnessing the natural differences in material thickness through process. Installations celebrate variations in form and the characteristics of the different clays, from the warm translucent hues of porcelain to the cleaner white of bone china. Vessels are approached experimentally, pushing the possibilities of slip-casting to an extreme through complex and innovative mould-making with skilful casting techniques using hand-dyed clays in a signature monochrome palette. Anna’s vessel collections explore crisp geometries on multi-profiled vessels with an architectural feel, emerging patterns on simple cylindrical vessels and soft felt-like surface qualities of a unique erosion technique on round-based balance vessels. |
Background: Anna graduated from Brighton University with a 1st class honours degree in Wood, Metal Ceramics and Plastics in 1997. Early in her career Anna co-founded the design house Hub with Andrew Tanner. A ceramics homewares business at the forefront of bringing sculptural ideas into functional design in the early 2000s. Hub worked with UK based ceramics manufacturers in Staffordshire to produce a collection that boasted some of the big names in design retailers internationally and received much acclaim in the press. Those manufacturers sadly did not make it through the financial crash of 2008 and led both Anna and Andrew into new ventures. Alongside a young family and keen to explore the freedom of experimentation in the making as well as the designing Anna set up a making studio at her home. Exploring the techniques and principles of manufacturing processes and the role of new technologies in a craft environment.
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