Holly Dawes, Ceramic Artist

 Holly Dawes is a ceramicist based in Hastings. Working primarily with wild and locally sourced clays, her practice explores the relationship between the body and the land through clay, pigment, poetry and moving images.

From collecting clay directly from the landscape to pit firing with gathered materials, Holly remains closely connected to each stage of making. Her hand-built ceramic works are created through slow, repetitive processes of coiling, embracing the marks of touch, time and transformation. Cracks, sediments, ash and traces of place become part of the work’s language.

Drawing on ancient making traditions and an ongoing dialogue with the natural world, her practice reflects cycles of change: softness becoming hardness, fluidity becoming permanence, earth becoming vessel. Through these material transformations, she considers themes of memory, ancestry, care and belonging.

Alongside her studio practice, Holly teaches ceramics and shares accessible approaches to working with clay, encouraging others to connect with materials, landscape and process. Her work invites a slower way of looking and a deeper attention to the stories held within the land beneath our feet.