Gaby Guz is a contemporary ceramic artist whose work explores the intersection of control and chance through alternative firing techniques. Based at Rochester Square Studio in London, she creates distinctive wheel-thrown vessels that balance precise craftsmanship with the unpredictable beauty of fire and smoke.
Educational and Professional Journey
After completing a first degree in Experimental Psychology followed by academic research, Gaby pursued a career in advertising. However, this path did not satisfy her creative drive and the need to make that she had experienced since childhood. She left her job to pursue ceramics seriously, first under the guidance of Mo Abdalla at Camden Arts Centre, then completing the renowned Ceramic Degree Course at Harrow School of Art in the early 1990s. While raising her children, she continued making pots for pleasure and took up life drawing, which would later become an integral part of her practice.
Gaby Guz's Artistic Philosophy
Gaby describes herself as a lifelong maker with two great creative passions: ceramics and drawing. Life drawing, which she took up later in life, has become as vital to her practice as ceramics, allowing her 'to really see.' This discipline informs her approach to form and mark-making across both media. The challenge of taming clay and the immediacy of 'growing' something between her fingers is, in her words, addictive. The total immersion and focus required provides an antidote to life's frantic multi-tasking.
Technique and Process
Gaby specializes in Naked Raku and Saggar firing techniques, both producing unglazed surfaces with decoration created through smoke and various metals. The process begins with throwing rough-textured clay necessary to withstand thermal shock. When leather-hard, multiple layers of terra sigillata are applied to the surface and burnished—painstaking work where a slightly-too-long fingernail or misplaced tool can ruin the surface.
This meticulous, patient, and highly controlled preparation is then subjected to violent raku or saggar firing where fire, wood, and water create the final surface. In Naked Raku, glaze is used in the mark-making process but removed post-firing—hence the term 'naked.' The smooth, polished, egg-shell-like surfaces that result belie the intense process that created them, forming canvases for marks created by smoke, copper, cobalt, iron, and steel.
Controlled Unpredictability
Traditionally, marks created through alternative firing were random. However, through continual experimentation, Gaby has developed her own techniques to control these marks and create intentional designs. This has required deep understanding of how each component part of the firing process interacts, as well as how they are affected by humidity and temperature. The result combines designed markings with elements of chance—each piece entirely unique through the combination of honed technique and the alchemy of the kiln. There is always an element of uncertainty, and the 'hatching' unveils a one-of-a-kind design.
Drawing Practice
Unlike her ceramics, where controlled and precisely made pieces are given over to the kiln's alchemy, Gaby's life drawings work in reverse. She first applies color—ink or chalk pastels—to convey an 'essence' of the pose, then overlays this with controlled, accurate marks using black line in ink, pastel, or charcoal. Using earth colors such as brick red, burnt umber, raw sienna, and ochres to convey rawness, she allows tone to 'escape' the line—the opposite of traditional 'coloring in.' She favors quick poses to capture moments in time, emotion, movement, and light.
Exhibition and Recognition
Since 2015, when Gaby was invited to be Artist in Residence at the charity WAC Arts, her work has been exhibited publicly in both solo and joint shows. Her ceramics have been featured at prestigious events including The London Design Fair, Celebrating Ceramics, Ceramic Art Oxford, The Affordable Art Fair, and London Design Week. As a Selected Member of the Crafts Potters Association and member of Rochester Square Studio since 2018, her work is held in private collections both in the UK and abroad.