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Awakenings

Wild Iceland - A Journey of Discovery

3 October - 29 November 2025

Jillian Riley is an artist who uses a ceramic canvas to illustrate her journey's: creative, geographical and personal. Visits to Iceland have informed this new collection of work where the magic and wonder of the wilderness have inspired intriguing forms featuring haunting drawings and dramatic glazes.

"From a love of corvids, flora and fauna, mixed with a passion for the wild landscapes of Iceland I have been inspired to create collections of apothecary vessels and sculptures in porcelain and parian clay."

"Iceland is not only an incredibly beautiful, ever-changing wilderness, but it also a place that gives you time to breathe, think and live in the moment."

Jillian Riley is a designer and ceramicist working from her studio in Derbyshire.

After working for many years as a commercial designer, she explored ceramics and found the medium that could combine her love of drawing with a malleable 3D surface.

Paula Rylat is an esteemed American glass artist living in West Wales. We are proud that she has selected Utopia as the gallery to have her last solo exhibition before retiring.

Rylatt's intense studies of nature create dynamic responses capturing the energy and movement of the observed. She is particularly inspired by the contrasts of change within constancy of trees and the sea. Her chosen material is clear, fused glass as it evokes the solid, yet ethereal qualities of her subject.

Crest

"There is something of those dynamics in my use of clear, fused glass; a solid material that looks like it will melt away, a ghost image of a place that allows the 'here and now' to be seen through it."

“I live a quiet and simple life in the hills of mid-coast Wales, and my work reflects that. I am particularly (but not solely) inspired by trees and the sea, which appear to have very different dynamics but which contain similar contrasts. Trees seem so constant, solid and still; silent witnesses, yet they are always moving, in growth or death or in response to their environment. The sea on the other hand appears to be in constant motion and change, slippery churning, but from an airplane waves breaking on a beach don't appear to move at all. They look frozen. The sea level turmoil is just energy passing through a fluid mass.

"There is something of those dynamics in my use of clear, fused glass; a solid material that looks like it will melt away, a ghost image of a place that allows the 'here and now' to be seen through it."

Coastal Wind

There Was a Time When

Glass interactive installation and poem

Tea Party Exhibition at Utopia

9 Fish Hill, Holt NR25 6BD

The Tea Party exhibition is a celebration of artworks inspired by the English tradition of taking afternoon tea. Expect humour and surprise as each artist reveals their unique and delightful response in clay, textile and paint.

Exhibitors are: ceramicists Remon Jephcott, Ian Rylatt, Eluned Glyn, Alvin Irving, Katherine Kingdon and textile artist Fran Squires plus a collection of new oil paintings by Jac Scott.

Eluned Glyn

Eluned Glyn is a ceramic designer/maker, living and working in Cardiff, Wales. She exhibits widely around the UK and Europe. Her fine art background and interest in Cubism has led to her Minimus Maximus Collection. 

Pieces are created by using broken crockery to make faceted objects, which are cast in pottery plaster and then slip-cast in earthenware clay. The ghost-like simplicity of the collection reflects the redundancy of colour that are typically absent in modernist design. It is the marriage of form and function that intrigues her and the distortion of the domestic object which is familiar, yet foreign in form.

Remon Jephcott

The traditional afternoon tea, as popularised by Victorian women, provided a setting for intimate social engagement. Inspired by this ritual, Remon Jephcott finds that the teacup is imbued with femininity, revealing a relationship between gender and object: characteristics such as delicacy and fragility with a precious quality.

The respectability that was a moral necessity for Victorian women, was not always upheld within their society, which Remon has subtly referenced in her teacups.

Remon Jephcott has a ceramics studio in Truro, Cornwall where she creates her earthenware clay sculptures using crackle and barium glazes to echo age and decay followed by decals and lustre firings.

Ian Rylatt

Ian Rylatt is a ceramicist with a finely tuned sense of mathematical proportion and sculptural balance. His fascination with abstracting and manipulating the teapot form has won him national acclaim.

In 1988 Ian became a studio potter in Lincoln, moving onto Wales in 2004 where he has an established practice. Since 2010 he has been a member of the Makers Guild of Wales.

He hand throws and constructs his pots in stoneware, then fires them at 1260°- 80°c. He uses bespoke black/rust glazes including colouring oxides manganese and iron to create his distinctive style of ceramics.

Fran Squires

Fran Squires is an East Anglian storyteller who uses textiles, print making, drawing and salvaged remnants to tell her narratives. She works in a very organic way letting the stories unfold in a loose graphic style with painterly details. Drawn to patterns in the world around her, she transposes these into pictorial artworks that attract the eye and pique curiosity.

After studying Surface Pattern at university, she went on to work as a designer, then technician at Norwich University of the Arts. Fran is now a full-time artist devoting her time to exploring new ways to tell her stories.

Katherine Kingdon

Berkshire based ceramicist, Katherine Kingdon, tells stories in clay. Her pieces are imbued with humour and her surface imagery playfully pokes at your imagination.

"I like the way that form and surface speak of place and circumstance, how something simple and mundane has the power to evoke memories or spark the imagination and take our mind for a walk."

Katherine slab-builds each piece, then sets about populating the surface with finely rolled slivers of clay. She invents these into characters and stories, leaving an element of ambiguity for the viewer to play with.

Alvin F. Irving

Cumbrian based Alvin F. Irving creates statement ceramic teapots to use as a canvas for his pictorial narratives. He throws and constructs tableware in porcelain and white earthenware. The pieces are then painted with underglaze brushwork and gold lustre highlights.

Home Collection

New oil paintings by Jac Scott

The domestic space has long held a fascination with many artists. Whatever the medium, to transpose the enigmatic and the mundane of home, is an enduring focus. Often drawing our attention to the small and overlooked elements, these still life works form narratives on our way of living.

Here Scott is preoccupied with the celebration of the joy of home comforts and the reflection of her feelings that these simple objects bring. By painting atmospheric vignettes, she focusses our gaze on a few items that capture the essence of the subject.

Her own country home forms the canvas for this unique collection with her love of old crockery, antique books and flowers emanating throughout the paintings. The casual, contemporary format of the compositions, the painterly style of the brushwork and the saturated colour palette, create an inviting window into the artist's world.

"I want to create pictures that are colour baths to wallow in and to soak up the warmth. The cosy style should feel like a wall-based hug".

Home Collection

A Collection of Original Oil Paintings by Jac Scott.

An antidote to fast living.

The domestic space has long held a fascination with many artists. Whatever the medium, to transpose the enigmatic and the mundane of home, is an enduring focus. Often drawing our attention to the small and overlooked elements, these still life works form narratives on our way of living.

Here Scott is preoccupied with the celebration of the joy of home comforts and the reflection of her feelings that these simple objects bring. By painting atmospheric vignettes, she focusses our gaze on a few items that capture the essence of the subject.

Her own country home forms the canvas for this unique collection with her love of old crockery, antique books and flowers emanating throughout the paintings. The casual, contemporary format of the compositions, the painterly style of the brushwork and the saturated colour palette, create an inviting window into the artist's world.

"I want to create pictures that are colour baths to wallow in and to soak up the warmth. The cosy style should feel like a wall-based hug".

"I want to enjoy wobbly towers of pretty vintage teacups, rows of mis-matched tea plates, (maybe a butterfly has landed on one?) clusters of quirky old tea and coffee pots, worn squashy sofas, and stacks of well-read books."

The Home Collection is an evolving body of work, so expect nuances and surprises along the way.

1 May - 28 June 2025

Jon Bull's work has evolved over the years, but one thing that has remained consistent is his strong relationship with the wheel.  It has always been at the centre of his creativity and serves as the spring from which his process flows; a process he describes as "form, surface, colour".

A few years after graduating at the University of Wales Institute, Jon made the transition from production thrower to studio potter, when he set up his first workshop and began developing his own work.  Gradually he moved away from making functional pottery, finding himself drawn to the more expressive creation of ceramic art.

For two decades now, Jon has been exhibiting at galleries and ceramic fairs all over the UK and beyond. His fascination with abstracting celestial-scapes, shorelines, the ocean and the earth, inspires beguiling forms with highly textured surfaces. Jon creates his signature, highly tactile stoneware-fired clay forms by using volcanic and barium glazes.

Jon Bull 's ceramic studio is based near Cardiff, Wales.

Spirit of Place Exhibition 1 March - 28 April 2025

The Spirit of Place exhibition aims to be a thought provoking show where the artwork  engages on a deeper level than just the aesthetic. It embraces the notion of 'place' as can be interpreted not only as a location, but also as a way of being.

For this unusual show, Utopia have brought together three artists who responded to the brief in different ways.  They each chose to express what the essence of place means to them through very different media: metal, ceramic and collage.

Jeni Cairns

Jeni Cairns is a Cambridgeshire-based artist whose strong connection to wild nature guides both her inner and outer worlds.

By harnessing the strength and versatility of reclaimed metal, Jeni creates intricate sculptures that reflect complex narratives of her relationship with the wild.

“In metal, as in nature, there’s a delicacy, yet enduring strength and resilience".

She uses a plasma cutter to cut into reclaimed metal such as old gas pipes, oil drums and cans, to create a tracery design of natural creatures and plants. This process harmonises her making skills with her strong passion for nature.

Fran Squires

Fran Squires is an East Anglian storyteller who uses textiles, print making, drawing and salvaged remnants to tell her narratives. She works in a very organic way letting the stories unfold in a loose graphic style with painterly details. Drawn to patterns in the world around her, she transposes these into pictorial artworks that attract the eye and pique curiosity.

After studying Surface Pattern at university, she went on to work as a designer, then technician at Norwich University of the Arts. Fran is now a full-time artist devoting her time to exploring new ways to tell her stories.

For the Spirit of Place exhibition Fran has focused on creating a series of 6 pictures that reflect daily walks around her village.

Jaeeun Kim

Jaeeun Kim's ceramics are personal narratives inspired by the art therapy method House-Tree-Person. Through delicate porcelain vases, she explores healing and self-discovery, expressing connections to home.

Her sculptural vessels are created by the slip cast method using fine porcelain fired at 1220 degrees centigrade. Decorated with glazes, drawings and transfers, her ceramics have a delicate and dainty quality with an ethereal aura.

Born in South Korea, Jaeeun focuses her art practice from her London studio.

Interwoven Forms: The Art of Clay and Lace

1 February - 28 March 2025

Lesley Farrell creates beautiful sculptural forms in ceramic.

Her hand-built vessels employ traditional coiling and pinch construction methods. 

Many of the pieces are double walled, creating the illusion of density, with delicate surface patterns sourced from vintage lace. 

She is interested in exploring how traces of the past can be held and recalled through hand-made objects. The transfer of the surface pattern relies on the touch of the original lace enfolding the ceramic form.  The work alludes to the former life of the lace and the absence of the persons who owned and made it. 

Having obtained a degree in Ceramics from Loughborough College of Art & Design, Lesley now pursues a career in the gallery sector and is an established curator alongside her studio practice.  She also has an MA in Photography and a PGCE Art and Design.

Elaine Peto has spent a lifetime being inspired by the natural world. From her studio in Hampshire she studies animal behaviour, their forms and characteristics. Elaine's current portfolio includes ceramic sculptures of farm and wild animals and even sea creatures. She specialises in creating one-off pieces using textured stoneware and porcelain clay.

“My aim is to capture the essence of the beast”

At Exeter College of Art & Design, Elaine studied animals through research visits to livestock markets and abattoirs, using the media of photography and drawing to record the structure of the carcass. After graduating in 1985, she continued her studies of agricultural animals, setting up her own studio in 1986.

There is a softness about Elaine's sculptures, that despite the hard ceramic form, she manages to create a flesh/skin like quality with the employment of various scratching techniques and impressing textured textiles into the soft clay. This creates a highly tactile surface that demands to be touched. Her use of multiple glazes adds a further dimension that enhances and attracts.

Elaine makes each animal as an individual, determined to suggest character with her enigmatic styling processes. Each creature is made by building the form using clay slabs: rolling out a sheet of clay and forming the body, then gradually adding slab by slab to form the whole animal. The details are then remodelled until the animal is complete. The animal is biscuit fired, glazed and re-fired to stoneware.

We are delighted to showcase the work of this accomplished sculptor at Utopia.

Utopia: The Unexpected Gallery in Holt is holding a special launch party to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK, the UK’s leading dementia research charity, and to celebrate living 10 years in Norfolk and the opening of their new gallery at 9 Fish Hill, Holt.  The Gallery, moved across town after 5 years, from 33 High Street to 9 Fish Hill, this month.

It aims to raise funds for Alzheimer’s Research UK, the charity leading the search for a cure for the diseases that cause dementia, by hosting a charity party with special offers on the night, a raffle and donation box.

The party takes place on 11 October at 4.30 - 7.30pm

Two new solo exhibitions to launch:

Talking Heads

Ceramic tales by famous international sculptor Christy Keeney

Menagerie

A magical animal kingdom sculpted from clay by Elaine Peto

Jac Scott said:

“We want this to be a wonderful evening of art with a strong message that Alzheimers is a dreadful disease that effects half of us in some way. It has already impacted hard on our lives and we treat each day as a new challenge. Supporting this charity is vital to progressing research into dementia."

Lucy Squance, Director of Supporter Led Fundraising at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said:

“If nothing changes, one in two of us will be directly affected by dementia – either by developing it ourselves, caring for someone with it, or both. 

“Fantastic fundraising efforts like this are driving our search for a cure to end the heartbreak of dementia.” 

For further information about Alzheimer’s Research UK, or to find out more about fundraising for the charity, call 0300 111 5555 or visit www.alzheimersresearchuk.org

Painter Colin Kitchener

Suffolk's Colin Kitchener has always had a passionate interest in the beautiful medieval properties of East Anglia.  This fascination has transposed into sourcing reclaimed terracotta peg tiles from reclamation yards, to form the ground for his unique paintings. 

Each piece is an original work featuring architectural details.

Some tiles are centuries old and often bear the original craftsman’s finger print adding to the narrative. Colin paints in harmony with the individual character of the rugged texture, brought about during the firing process and then exposure to the elements, choosing to let the tile direct the details.

He says "Each tile has its own story.."


>> View the work of Colin Kitchener here <<

Pargeter Bill Sargent

Bill Sargent is amongst the highest regarded pargeters in the country. His work can be seen all over East Anglia. Pargeting is the ornamentation of a plastered and rendered building facade. It's origins can be traced back to ornamental lime plastering during the Roman Empire. Henry Vlll is believed to have brought it in fashion in sixteenth century by employing Italian plasterers to decorate Nonsuch Palace.

Bill Sargent began plastering in the 1960s, doing a formal apprenticeship, followed by working with his father continuing the tradition of conservation plasterwork and pargeting. The specialist company was set up by his grandfather in 1926.

This master craftsman can still be seen restoring ancient buildings, but for us he has created a special giant wall panel in a traditional design, ready to adorn a wall outside or inside your home. If you live in East Anglia, Bill will happily plaster this beautiful panel onto your wall using traditional techniques for a small fee. Or you could hang it as a picture.

https://pargettingcompany.com/

>> View the work of Bill Sargent here <<

Mixed-Media Artist Sarah Jane Brown

Sarah Jane Brown specialises in creating quirky sculptures where she cleverly manipulates scale. Her miniature pieces explore narratives centred around houses. Her employment of old newsprint married with wood, rusty metal and tin delivers sensitive creations with great attention to detail. Sarah's pieces are such fun and beautifully executed.

                   >> View the work of Sarah Jane Brown here <<

Woodland Tales

David Mayne has a lifelong passion for nature and landscape, evoked in his stunning sculptures made of steel and wood. He enjoys creating both large scale architectural pieces for the public realm and small scale sculptures for private collectors.

The pieces are refined from a narrative of local landscapes and fauna.

The sculptor works from Holmfirth in Yorkshire, where his love of outdoor pursuits marries happily with the wild and beautiful neighbouring countryside.

“I live near several woods that are a constant source of inspiration. The animals I combine in my work, not only define scale but also remind me of a fleeting wondrous moment when they briefly appeared in the wood".