(1968, Bristol, UK)

Dean Coates graduated with a degree in Earth Sciences from Oxford Brookes University and holds a Masters in Ceramics from Cardiff University. He lives and works in Bristol, UK.

Coates’ making process is intuitive and experimental, he uses clay to build forms using a variety of techniques, pinching, extruding, coiling, slab building. Sometimes the forms are simple formal shapes and others more complex with additions of component parts. The pieces are informed by geological processes and structural landscape.

Dean tries to utilise materials in his studio as often as possible, recycling clay from buckets, glaze leftovers, sand, rocks and grog from smashed up pieces that never quite made the mark. His approach to glazing is spontaneous, he likes to be surprised by the transformation of the firing in the kiln, the interactions of all the clay and minerals.