Welcome to Naomi McILroy's ceramics website.

I graduated with a Ceramics BA from Camberwell College Of Arts in 2001. I have been developing my techniques and ideas since then, drawing on my interests in nature, art, history, myths and stories, as well as the basis of our existence, the human condition.

As well as creating wall plaques and other pieces of ceramic art I handbuild sculptures using the human form as my inspiration. The figures are often calm, quiet, contemplative, at other times sad, distraught and lonely, evoking a state of mind. Other pieces just seem to develop with no real driving force or motive. These are usually my calmer more meditative creations, seemingly ageless, often sexless figures of human form.

Recently I’ve been drawn back to using nature as my inspiration, getting ideas from what I see around me, from the changing seasons, shapes and colours that develop through the years, ever changing, never stopping.

I use various techniques of building depending on the size and shape of the pieces – coiling, slab work, moulding, scraping and beating. With smaller pieces I use other methods, such as relief work, melting glass to the clay surface and cutting away. At the moment I am experimenting with plaster, carving into the surface to get an image in relief onto the clay, so I can get fine, controlled lines and subtle decorations. All my work is glazed to stoneware temperatures so can be displayed both indoors and outdoors.

I understand that the way I see and feel about my work will be different from others. I like to think that for someone else it will mean something too, they are welcome to put their own thoughts into it, to make it work for them.