“The wildness of the rugged Irish landscape is what inspires me”

Ceramicist Amanda Murphy makes decorative hand-built stoneware ceramics including vases, platters and bowls. Each piece is hand-built, inspired by movement within the landscape.

Using oxides and coloured glass to punctuate the pieces, the creations offer what the potter calls a bird’s eye view of the landscape. It looks like the highs and lows of an Ordinance Survey map. Using a blue-white crystalline glaze the platters are pieces that can sit atop a table or hang on the wall. The way the glaze and glass melt during firing is different each time, making each piece unique.

Inspired in the main by the landscape and the movement offered by views from above, the rippled bowls and jagged edge platters evoke the mountains and other undulations in the land. Amanda Murphy studied ceramic design at the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork. She sucessfully completed the DCCI (Design and Crafts Council Ireland) pottery skills course in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny and then honed her craft at Ardmore, Badger Hill and Stephen Pearce potteries before setting out to create her own designs.