ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
We meet the superstar of the ceramics world, Florian Gadsby, ahead of his new exhibition with Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Getting hold of one of Florian Gadsby’s pots is akin to getting tickets to Glastonbury – if you’re not on the site the moment they go on sale, you’re not getting one. This is what the world-renowned ceramic artist tells me as we sit in one of the offices of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park – the location for his first solo show: By My Hands.
‘I’m hoping it will be a less stressful buying experience for people,’ he explains. ‘It’s also a nice way for people to see a potter’s work they’ve admired online for a long time.’
By ‘people’ he means an audience of nearly four million followers and subscribers that watch religiously as he shares behind-thescenes footage of his processes and craft. What was originally intended to be a way of sharing his work with his family and friends has proved so popular it’s turned him into a social media sensation.
‘Typically, I exist in this online world, where you don’t meet people and you don’t get to see your work in a purpose-built gallery space,’ Florian explains as he expresses his excitement about the upcoming show. Available only at YSP, the artist has created a whole new body of work to showcase almost a decade of artistic discovery. It features new and tried-and-tested shapes, angled and simple forms, and beautiful pots coated in iron, fired numerous times.
Coinciding with the By My Hands exhibition, Penguin Books is publishing a new book of the same name, in which Florian tells the very personal story of his artistic awakening, beginning with his time as a teenager where he found a calling in clay.
It was at a Rudolf Steiner School his teachers discovered his natural talent for three-dimensional art, and a place where, as Florian describes: ‘For the first time in my life someone had told me I was good at something.’ From here, he had an intense two years at a pottery school in Ireland where he honed his craft and discovered his love for simple, minimal ceramics. He later became a studio apprentice for Lisa Hammond MBE for three years who arranged for him to do a visiting apprenticeship with Japanese master-pot
