Katarzyna Miściur, (2024) Thorn tree II, Ceramic composition, slab built stoneware, glaze, fired in electric kiln
Auckland Studio Potters: AiR3
20 February - 13 April 2025
Photography Gallery
The Artist in Residence programme was established at Auckland Studio Potters in 2019. Applications are called from national and international potters and ceramicists to spend up to three months in one of ASP’s two pod studios on the Centre’s grounds in Onehunga, Tāmaki Makaurau. The ASP committee has identified the residency programme as having the potential to stoke the local fires of a resurgence in ceramic arts worldwide and to provide a creative hub for experimental and traditional ceramics in New Zealand. Resident artists help around the centre and teach where possible and in doing so become valuable contributors to the centre’s whanaungatanga and shared sense of community.
Included artists are young graduates, PhD candidates, traditional artisan master-craftsmen to contemporary exhibiting artists and modern table and homeware specialists. The AiR programme is keen to foster this eclectic cross-section of clay workers and recognises the value in both traditional and contemporary ceramic practices.
AiR3 marks Auckland Studio Potters’ third Artist in Residence exhibition showcasing the work of the residents at ASP during 2024. It is a testament to our commitment to developing ASP as a creative institution, its members, and New Zealand ceramics. We do this by looking both inward at the unique inventive spirit of New Zealand-based ceramicists and outward by embracing the ingenuity and distinctive aesthetics of international clay workers into the programme.
Featuring:
Beth Harris
Casey Carsel
Erica Soria
Iza Lozano
Katarzyna Miściur
Kirsty McNeil
Riccardo Scott
Sarah Harrison
Shirui Tao
Taarn Scott
Auckland Studio Potters is a not-for-profit community-based organisation that offers pottery classes from beginners to master classes. It is located in Onehunga, Auckland and was established in 1961.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Bethany Harris
Bethany Harris is a Pōneke based ceramicist and writer. Beth completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Massey University Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, and now works as a full time studio technician and ceramics educator. Her practice is devoted to exploring and understanding the technical processes of ceramics as a place for storytelling and collaboration - between friends, and between ourselves and the elements. Her work means to display worlds within worlds, and the capacity for the sacred that exists within the mundane. The artist seeks to unveil the intangible elements of intimacy that exist between people, place and memory.
Casey Carsel
Casey Carsel (they/them) is drawn to the sharp beauty of the fragments of history that tumble down to the present moment. Unraveling the complex constructions of cultural belonging and home in the Jewish diaspora, from stories to jokes to the clothes on one’s back and the food on one’s table, they ask: What is cherished and how is it held? What is left behind? What is lost in translation? In answering these questions, they venture towards the pivotal intersection between art and craft, while staying grounded in queerness and doikayt. The visual and written works that result are imbued by dybbuks, golems, ancestors, and the visual, oral, and written languages that hold them.
Casey earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the University of Auckland, and has held residencies, fellowships, and grants with the New York Public Library, Tides Museum of Art, and Fulbright Ukraine, among others. They are currently a New Jewish Culture Fellow and a Folger Shakespeare Library Artist Fellow.
Erica Soria
In the dance between light and shadows, where inspiration blooms, Erica creates with clay, shaping vessels that sing, enlighten, and serve. During her residency, she explored the symbolism of the snake—a story of shedding, renewal, and evolution. This theme guided her work, from fluid, sculptural shapes to udu drums, flutes, and whistles that lead the way into a meditative state. Clay is her conduit for the abundance of colour and inspiration nature provides, reflecting the interplay of earth, water, air, and fire. Through this alchemy, she crafts pieces that celebrate rituals—moments of stillness in contrast to her own fast-paced nature, from dimming lights to pausing for tea. Her work offers harmony, joy, and connection—a native sense of fulfilment.
Iza Lozano
Iza Lozano (Baja California,1991) is a Mexican ceramic artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland. She studied ceramics at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, where she lived and developed her practice until 2020 when moving to Aotearoa / New Zealand. Since then, she has completed artist-in-residence programs at Auckland Studio Potters and Driving Creek Pottery. Iza’s works are inspired by archaeological objects from multiple cultural origins. Using the potter’s wheel as her main tool, she creates contrasting volumes as segments that are assembled to constitute intricate shapes, often leaving visible fingerprints as throwing lines: the trace of an orbital motion. Her work has been exhibited in Mexico, Spain, and Aotearoa.
Katarzyna Miściur
Katarzyna Miściur is a visual artist from Poland specializing in ceramic art and drawing.
She began her interest in fine arts as a young child with a keen enthusiasm for painting and drawing, this steadily progressed into a curiosity about sculpture. In 2003 at the High School of Fine Arts in Poland she was introduced to ceramics for the first time, and she has been truly devoted to it ever since. Katarzyna graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, Poland in 2012 with a Master of Fine Art in Ceramic Art and Design. This was followed by a Bachelor of Fine Arts 2014, and Master of Fine Arts in 2016, in Restoration of Ceramics and Glass. Additionally, she studied for one semester at the University of Porto in Portugal in 2009.
During these years she has learnt various techniques and also the technology of ceramics. She is particularly passionate about wood fired kilns. She also worked as an art restorer – focusing on ceramics and stone restoration.
She has extensive experience working as the Studio and Project Manager at the renowned Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark.
In July 2023 she started to travel and create in the studios around the world. Since then Katarzyna completed symposiums and residencies in Poland, New Zealand, Estonia, Latvia and China.
Kirsty McNeil
Kirsty McNeil is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau whose ceramic sculptures express an intuitive engagement with clay. Her work begins with small, hand-formed pieces shaped during moments of wandering and conversation, capturing the rhythms of connection within shared spaces like Auckland Studio Potters. Using recycled clay and incorporating fragments of past works, her sculptures undergo cycles of making, breaking, and remaking, demonstrating the dynamic potential of clay and its connection to the everyday environments that inspire her work.
Riccardo Scott
Riccardo's work is influenced by his Italian heritage and growing up in New Zealand. He is particularly drawn to Japanese and Korean ceramics and traditions of making. His pieces explore classical forms and mark-making, focusing on themes of identity and spirituality. Riccardo is intrigued with our relationship with clay as a medium that remains unassuming and honest. Through the process of making and firing, is able to converge time and place. He employs traditional techniques, such as wood firing and sources local materials for glazes, to express the work through a vernacular language. Forging a relationship with his surroundings, bringing together his diverse influences and thematic concern.
Sarah Harrison
Sarah Harrison's journey in ceramics is a testament to her passion for the material, creativity and resilience. Born and raised on Great Barrier Island, she found her way to clay via a Design course at Unitec in 1990. After graduating in 1993 with a Diploma in 3D Design(Ceramics) she returned home to establish her studio, Shoal Bay Pottery that has continued to flourish ever since.
The challenges of setting up a ceramics workshop on an offshore island, independent of the national grid and reliant on costly and weather-dependent freight services, were significant. However, Sarah found innovative solutions such as kick wheels, gas and wood-fired kilns, and adapted to the seasonal nature of island earning . The harvesting of local clays and glaze ingredients was also a natural progression.
At the heart of Sarah's work is a deep sense of connection with place, a simplicity and a desire to create beautiful, functional domestic ware that people can form enduring relationships with, further enhancing a sense of community.
Sarah's desire to connect with a wider ceramics community was what brought her to an ASP residency in 2024.
She'd had some involvement with the centre thirty years ago as a student in Auckland but very little after moving back to the island.
She spent three months working from one of the pods June-Sept and came away feeling very much reconnected with Auckland Studio potters and vowing to not leave it another thirty years before her return.
Shirui Tao | 陶诗蕊
Shirui Tao is an interdisciplinary artist and emerging creative arts therapist whose work blends psychology, philosophy, multicultural perspectives, and contemporary art. Based in Auckland, New Zealand, and with a cross-cultural background rooted in Chinese heritage, Shirui holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland and is completing a Master in Creative Arts Therapy at Whitecliffe. Her practice is influenced by Chinese cultural traditions, Western art theories, postmodern feminist thought, and Indigenous healing models, centering on themes of identity, embodiment, and spiritual connection. Shirui’s research explores art’s potential for self-discovery and healing, focusing on identity, cultural recognition, and spiritual awareness—especially for immigrants and marginalized communities. Integrating concepts from psychoanalysis, existentialism, and humanistic psychology, she examines how art can serve as a platform for resilience, offering individuals pathways for expressing complex emotions and reclaiming aspects of the self. As an art therapist in training, Shirui is dedicated to creating inclusive spaces where cultural and gender identities are explored and respected. She considers how cultural beliefs and spiritual practices influence personal and collective identity, bridging these through art to foster shared understanding and healing. Her work includes creating immersive, reflective environments through installation art, sculpture, video, and photography—spaces that invite introspection and a deeper engagement with spiritual and psychological themes.
Shirui’s commitment to community engagement extends to her role at Māpura Studios, where she supports youth art therapy programmes and contributes to art education. In 2024, she founded SR Arts Studio in Auckland’s Parnell district, hosting workshops that connect deeply with the community and offer accessible therapeutic art experiences for diverse groups. Through these initiatives, she merges her research with practical outreach, promoting art as a transformative tool for personal growth and social impact. As she continues to explore the intersections of art, psychology, and spirituality, Shirui is passionate about art’s ability to foster empathy, healing, and self-understanding, inviting audiences to connect with the complexities of the human experience and their shared potential for transformation.
Taarn Scott
Taarn Scott is an artist from Ōtepoti, based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Their practice is multidisciplinary and often collaborative, creating tactile objects informed by jewellery. These forms speak to ideas around habitat, environmental concerns, and geographical histories.