Future Icons Selects 2026 ceramic artists

This is a special feature for Future Icons Selects 2026 curated by Louisa Pacifico. Here you can read about the 7 ceramic artists taking part in this year’s show at 83 Rivington Street in Shoreditch. Now in its 4th year, the show continues its mission to champion experimentation and the leading edge of contemporary craft. I for one, cannot wait to look round and see these artists’ beautiful work displayed amongst other contemporary craft in such a gorgeous venue.

Hannah Heys

Who are you?

Hi, I am Hannah Heys a multidisciplinary Artist & Designer based in Cheddington, Buckinghamshire. I hand craft decorative pieces of contemporary ceramics, inspired by the juxtaposition of Nature and Architecture. Combining form, function and contemporary design to create modern heirlooms.

Each vase is hand thrown using either stoneware or porcelain clay, acting as a blank canvas ready for freehand delicate decoration, using sgraffito and slip trailed techniques, in a variety of striking colours.

The detailed abstract freehand decorations on each vase highlights the contrast between the delicacy of the decoration and the solidity of the high fired ceramics.

Why do you also have a thing with ceramics?

My exploration into the world of Ceramics was almost accidental, I had always loved ceramics from afar, and had even worked in a variety of disciplines throughout my creative career, but never thought that the creation of Ceramics would be for me. Originally a ‘date night’ activity for my husband (a furniture maker & wood carver) and I, to enjoy something creative that wasn’t ‘work related’. From my first class, the versatility of what could be achieve within ceramics was really exciting to me, then we started learning to throw... and that was it, I was hooked.

I spent many years working to create texture and body within flat fabric and illustrative pieces of work, so being able to create a 3D form on the wheel was a delight. As if that wasn’t enticing enough, the decorative processes allowed me create detail and delicacy on 3D forms. In July 2023, I put my Textiles & Surface Pattern business on hold to focus on Ceramics, and the rest (as they say), is history.

Hannah Heys website

Louise Bell

Who are you?

I am Louise Bell, a ceramic artist living in East Sussex. I create hand-built ceramic sculptures in high-fired red clay, layering slips, underglazes, lustres and enamels to evoke the muted surfaces and quiet history of ancient artefacts. I am exhibiting a collection of wheeled animals, inspired by ancient pull-along toys, at Future Icons Selects. These totemic forms suggest qualities needed to navigate an uncertain future, particularly in relation to the natural world, climate change, and threatened species. Motifs of hope and renewal—acorns, infants, angels and bees—emerge throughout the work.

Why do you also have a thing with ceramics?

I am drawn to ceramics because of the alchemy of clay. A simple lump of earth and powdered glaze materials can, through time, labour and transformation, become something enduring. The process still feels like a kind of magic, despite the many hours of work behind it.

There are so many facets to being a ceramicist, and I am particularly drawn to the research and development stage—testing surfaces, refining forms, and allowing ideas to evolve through making. My work is closely connected to my passion for animals and concern for the future of endangered species, which I explore through sculptural form.

I enjoy experimenting with shape, surface and decoration, and each piece I create is entirely unique. My sculptures often undergo multiple firings—sometimes up to five—and the moment of opening the kiln after the final glaze firing remains both nerve-wracking and full of anticipation.

I have always been drawn to the process of learning, and to the gradual development of ideas and skills over time. My journey with clay began at school, where I studied O level pottery, and continued through a series of short courses that deepened my practice and led to a Higher Diploma in Fine and Applied Art at City Lit. More recently, I completed an MA in Crafts at the University of Brighton, further expanding my approach to materials, process and form.

Louise Bell website

Rachel Karasik

Who are you?

I'm Rachel, a ceramic artist exploring the possibilities of movement through clay, using one of the most elemental forms, a circle, to build kinetic, tactile sculptures. My work plays with absurdity and themes of protection, history, and the fragility of both ourselves and the systems that surround us.

I studied curation at Central Saint Martins but did little with it for a long time, instead pursuing a varied career across food, technology, social innovation and systems change. However, I always managed to intertwine creative threads through my work, like collaborating with artists and architects to create immersive dining experiences. I've now come full circle and am fully immersed in the arts again and feeling right at home. When not in my own studio, I teach at Neighbourhood Pottery and work for an arts education charity.

Why do you also have a thing with ceramics?

I have a thing for ceramics for so many reasons. I took my first pottery class right as I was ending a nearly decade-long career as a chef, very burnt out and in desperate need of change. Little did I know that over the course of the next 8 years, it would slowly become a catalyst for healing, re-prioritising my life and opening the doors to new opportunities, career and community. I love the versatility and diversity of form, function and style that exists in ceramics - I am endlessly amazed at what other people can do with clay. I love that it is a truly humbling medium, where things can go wrong at any stage, and even if the whole thing survives, it can be broken at any point of its existence. You have to accept and embrace the fragility and chance of failure as inherent to the process, which I personally find to be an incredibly freeing way of approaching my work.

Rachel Karasik website

Emily Gibbard

Who are you?

I'm Emily Gibbard, a ceramic sculptor from Bristol, UK.

My ceramic practice transforms vessels thrown on the potter's wheel into biomorphic sculptural forms that explore body perception, identity and sexuality. While rooted in the traditions of the pottery craft, I play and experiment with thrown forms to create abstract body representation. My inspiration comes from work in female empowerment, studies into prehistoric sculpture and my personal journey of body discovery.

Why do you also have a thing with ceramics?

With a background in art and design, ceramics completely stole my heart when I moved to it over a decade ago. There are so many things I love about this medium, so buckle up...

One minute you're a structural engineer supporting a giant sculpture as the clay hardens. The next you're a chemist developing a glaze recipe, and then you're trying to predict how the clay will behave in the kiln temperatures. The day I get most excited about is when I have thrown a series of components on the potter's wheel and it's time to construct a sculpture with them. Ceramics is never boring and there's always something to learn.

I like working with a natural material where I'm forever learning about it's capabilities and how it behaves under different conditions. I build a dialogue with the clay where I listen to its will as well as imparting my own ideas.

I love the ceramics community where potters are always generous with their knowledge and supportive of others. We all eat and camp together at some of the outdoor summer festivals, and we even swap pieces of work.

I've enjoyed bringing my art into 3D through clay and love how thrown vessels can be manipulated and joined to create larger composite forms.

Emily Gibbard website

Emma Cooke (Hello Ditto)

Who are you?

Hi! I’m Emma Cooke (otherwise known as Hello Ditto) a London-based multi-disciplinary ceramic artist. I make conceptual and functional handcrafted vessels that explore the space between design methodology and craft execution. Drawing inspiration from both our physical and sensory environments, I blend traditional craft techniques with innovative processes and material research, producing multiple iterations and collections of vessels that are both thoughtfully designed and physically engaging.

Why do you also have a thing with ceramics?

I came to clay relatively late in life, I’ve always been creative with a background in graphic design, but found working with clay gave more freedom and a tactile, rather than screen-based, outlet for that artistic expression. Inspired by an array of night classes I took a career break and instead studied full-time for a HND in ceramics. I love experimenting and exploring how such an elemental material can be pushed and transformed, through combining thrown, hand built, and slip-cast elements with design-led surface decoration and texture. My practice requires both methodical planning and testing, mindful presence and of course an element of play!

Hello Ditto website

Louisa Akka (Ceramakka)

Who are you?

I’m Louisa Akka, a UK-based ceramic artist. I am an insatiably curious individual who seeks to understand the world around me and our place within it.

I make biomorphic ceramic sculptures for both interior and exterior spaces. My work is informed by the science behind Forest Bathing, which I translate into forms designed to calm, rejuvenate and connect. My sculptures reference cycles of growth and regeneration, and are designed to shift the atmosphere of a space in a subtle way, rather than dominate it. They are unglazed and meticulously finished with a multi-stage hand sanding process, that not only emphasises the beauty of the ceramic material and the sculptures’ haptic qualities, but also enhances the sustainability of my practice.

Why do you also have a thing with ceramics?

I have been drawn to the elemental nature of clay since the age of five, when I used to dig up the clay rich soil in my family’s garden to make animal sculptures. I have found it to be a very soothing, grounding material, no matter what life throws at me! I love the meditative flow state generated by being in constant conversation with the material during the creative process, with something new being discovered as each piece unfolds. In an increasingly digital world, I feel clay helps us to slow down and connect, not only with ourselves, but also to a shared sense of what it is to be human. I have found that whether making alone in my studio, or with others, ceramics is never dull!

Ceramakka website

Steve Cook (Modern Ceramic)

Who are you?

I'm Steve Cook, I'm a largely self-taught potter living in Farnham, Surrey, my studio, Modern Ceramic, launched in 2023. My practice is based on a desire to capture the monumental and industrial at a small-scale, through largely utilitarian pieces. My technical knowledge and expertise is centred on wheel-thrown clay, particularly porcelain and glaze development for the resulting forms. CNC and hand working of other materials such as recycled plastics, metal, resins and wood complement the ceramic techniques.

Why do you also have a thing with ceramics?

I grew up in Sheffield in the 1980s, a place that felt to me to be reaching for modernity. Ambitious brutalist architecture sat alongside the rapid decline of the steel industry, challenging the city’s identity. I immersed myself in this landscape of concrete optimism and heavy industrial decay. It has given me a lasting romantic attachment to a sense of possibility and search for progress set in a context of machinery and processes that were starting to become part of the past. I struggled for years to find a medium that I could work in which would enable me to produce art that reflected some of these feelings but ten years ago I moved to Farnham and tapped into its craft heritage and started a pottery class. As soon as I started working on the wheel I felt as though I had found a material and a way of working that would allow me to create the things that were in my head. I have been obsessed ever since!

There is something uniquely satisfying about starting with a lump of earth and working with your hands to bring an idea to life. I find throwing immersive, meditative, maddening, all consuming and above all, a constant learning process. Mastering the many stages of creating ceramics: throwing, trimming, glaze making, glazing and firing is a lifelong process and the results are sometimes disastrous and frustrating but at times can be truly elating as you capture a form, translucency and surface that feels like the results of magic.

Ultimately, I am trying to recreate the sense of wonder and awe I felt as a child looking at the details of an urban landscape dominated by structures I didn’t really understand. But they felt to me to be deeply connected to a hope for the future driven by technological progress. Working with clay lets me do this and I'll be forever grateful that I found it.

Modern Ceramic website