Sandy Brown (born 1946) helped to introduce a freer approach to form and colour in the 1980s. Her work was the antithesis of the predominantly controlled style of functional wares at that time, as she sought spontaneity and a more gestural way of throwing and marking her pots. It was an aesthetic largely formulated in Mashiko, Japan, where Brown trained, but her vocabulary owes as much to abstract painting as it does to the more expansive aspects of clay.

Brown understood the connection between liberally used glaze and slip and the most vigorous work of contemporary painters, something she has explored successfully in bowls, lidded jars, dishes and big platters and a variety of other pieces for the table, pots which still preserve the liquid character of lubricated clay. Brown also makes big sculptural pieces at her studio in Appledore, on the north Devon coast.

David Whiting