Ben Davies creates unique pieces of ceramic art using techniques to create strata, stone and smoke-fired textures. He uses a variety of coloured and textured clays to create distinctive coiled pots which take their forms and surfaces from nature, with inspiration coming from beach stones and geological strata. By combining clays and layering slips, using a range of techniques, Ben can create dramatic effects without the use of glazes. He scrapes and sands surfaces before a single firing at earthenware temperatures. After firing Ben sands the pots again prior to final polishing.

Inspired by his pottery teacher at school in York, Ben studied art at Foundation Level before taking a degree in Geology and training as a cellist at the Royal Academy of Music. He returned to pottery in his late thirties, attending classes at Barry Guppy’s studio in Pimlico. Working from home, he started making unglazed coiled pots using coloured and textured clays, employing burnishing techniques and occasionally smoke firing. Ben’s current work explores textures and pattern inspired by geology and landscape. He uses a variety of hand-building techniques to produce vessels which he then sands and polishes to achieve smooth tactile surfaces.

Ben now lives in Hackney, East London with his partner and three children, and since 1997 has been building his pots in a shed at the bottom of the garden. He started exhibiting his pots in 2004.