Hear from Heather Gibson, our current Potter in Residence at County Hall Pottery, whose first solo exhibition Surfacing is now on display. Made entirely in our studio and fired in the on-site gas kiln, Heather’s hand-built ceramic forms explore memory, trace and time through layered surfaces and sculptural presence. In this article, she shares the ideas and processes behind Surfacing.
“For my first solo exhibition at County Hall Pottery, I wanted to respond directly to the historic building itself, a unique space with a long, layered history located on the Thames.
Surfacing speaks of things slowly emerging – out of the earth, out of memory and out of the kiln. The gallery with its large open space creates possibilities for exploring new perspectives, inviting viewers to view an emerging landscape created by the collection as well as up close and the reflections of the ceramics as they unfold.”
“All the works in the exhibition were made in the County Hall Pottery studio using the large gas kiln on-site, which became an essential collaborator in the process. Over the last year, I have used the reduction firing process to not just finish my pieces, but to transform them – their surfaces becoming geological, flowing and fluxing, painterly terrains. The surface of the ceramic a record of its own history: stretched, cracked, and marked.”
The gallery holds a group of large, hand-built ceramic forms. They stand somewhere between vessels and sculptures – objects that sit between function and fiction, past and present. On the walls, smaller works echo details from historic pottery shards I’ve found along the Thames foreshore. I’ve abstracted and reassembled them, not as relics but as gestures – something half-remembered, the silhouette of a forgotten form.
Each piece is an accumulation of multiple layers of material, clay, slip and glaze. It’s a process I began developing during my time at the RCA, and one that continues to surprise me. I don’t try to control the outcome completely. Instead, I work with the materials as collaborators, ultimately letting the kiln complete the narrative.
For me, working in ceramics is a way of thinking through time – not linear, but layered and translucent. These works don’t aim to reconstruct the past but to allow its residue to re-surface. They ask you not just to look, but to stay with them long enough to see what else might surface.”
Explore Surfacing at County Hall Pottery, on view from 12th August – 7th September 2025. Entry is free and open to all. For any questions, please email gallery@countyhallpottery.com.