Ken Eastman - Ceramics

In 2006, Ken Eastman was invited to work collaboratively with Royal Crown Derby factory, and the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh showed an exhibition of this new body of bone china pieces in June 2009. Using the classic Derby patterns that have been in production since 1750, the work displays the dramatic impact of Ken’s familiar vessel form combined with the sensual surface of bone china.

Ken Eastman studied at Edinburgh College of Art and at the Royal College of Art in London. The core of his work centres around the idea of the vessel.  He has never made functional work, but rather uses the vessel as a subject - to give meaning and form to an expression. 

He explains “Part of the reason for making (in fact a very large part of the reason) is to see things that I have never seen before- to build something that I can not fully understand or explain.”

He exhibits widely internationally and has won many prestigious awards in the field of the ceramic arts, including the ‘Premio Faenza’, Italy in 1995, the ‘Gold Medal’ at the World Ceramic Exposition 2001 Korea and the ‘President De la Generalitat Valencia’at the 5 th Biennale International De Ceramica, Manises, Spain. In 1998-99 he was awarded the Arts Foundation Fellowship in Ceramics.

In addition to his studio work, Ken Eastman has lectured and taught in many colleges and universities throughout the UK and is currently academic research lecturer at Glasgow School of Art.