Tessa Wolfe Murray MSDC

Ceramics

About Tessa
Tessa makes a range of work in white earthenware clay. Inspiration for surface decoration is distilled from a process that begins with drawings and photographs – rock formations, beach debris, ground and building surfaces, museum artefacts.
Website
Biography Back to top

Based in East Sussex, ceramicist Tessa creates both hand-built and slip cast vessels. Depending on their design, hand-built work is assembled with between three and seven slabs of clay. She has two ranges of work – one uses vibrant colours created from refined metal oxides and a controlled smoke firing.

The other is a muted range with decoration created using impressed stones and incised drawing lines. Both surfaces are influenced by her coastal landscape.

Vessel shapes are often elliptical, and stem from drawings made in museums, both cultural and archeological.

Tessa shows work in galleries across the UK and is a member of the following craft organisations:

  • Craft Potters Association Professional Member
  • Contemporary Applied Arts
  • Design Nation
  • The Sussex Guild
Resumé Back to top

Education

  • Tessa studied Fine Art at Ravensbourne College and Ceramics at Goldsmiths College, London.

Commissions

  • Tessa has worked with the Conran Shop designing and making ranges of hand-built vases and lamp bases.
  • A commission to make 20 Ikebana vessels for an exhibition at Takashimaya in Osaka Japan led to creating new designs for her own work.
  • She has worked with individual interior designers, creating bespoke pieces.

Recent exhibitions

  • 2025 Craft in Evolution, London
  • 2024 Mythological Contemporary Applied Art, London
  • 2024 Canvas & Clay Whitehouse Gallery, Kirkcudbright, Scotland
Other Makers in Ceramics