14.03.2026 – 13.06.2026


Phil Root:

Flat Earth

Flat Earth is a solo exhibition by Bristol-based artist Phil Root, presenting new ceramic works. Working with foraged and industrial materials—unprocessed clay, wood ash, and brick dust—Root explores the limits of traditional ceramics through experimental casting, glazing and firing. The exhibition opens on Friday 13 March 2026 at Modern Painters, New Decorators in Loughborough, as part of Lboro Lates.

---

Root invites clay to behave on its own terms. Whether casting asphalt textures from outside his studio or firing slabs of raw clay dug from a Bristol building site, he lets materials shape themselves—altered by heat, pressure, and time. These works reflect a process-led, site-responsive approach to making: tiles and panels that resist uniformity and record their own transformation in the kiln.

One series draws on medieval tilework found at Ulverscroft Priory in Charnwood Forest—recreated using unrefined construction clay and glazed with wood ash gathered from Bristol woodlands. Rather than depict a forest, Root works with its remnants: scorched bark, collapsed soil, and mineral residue. In another, flat casts of street surfaces become ceramic panels where glazes settle and pool unpredictably, shaped by the heat of the kiln and the sites they were cast from.

Root fires all the work in a self-built wood kiln at Lyde Green Pottery, Bristol—shared with over 100 artists from the UK and abroad. The kiln’s temperature, smoke, and atmosphere become collaborators, shaping each piece through unpredictability and alchemic transformation. Some of the works adapt ancient ceramic formulas used for amulets and beads in Egyptian and Islamic pottery—merging historic recipes with found materials and contemporary firing methods.

---

Phil Root is a visual artist based at Spike Island in Bristol. His practice uses ceramic processes to explore the material limits of sculpture, function, and form. Root has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, including residencies at Driving Creek Pottery (New Zealand), Camden Arts Centre (London), and Wysing Arts Centre (Cambridge). He lectures in Ceramics and Fine Art and has recently spoken at Ateljehus Pukeberg (Sweden).