Troy Town Art Pottery is Aaron Angell's ceramic studio. It is a radical and psychedelic workshop for artists. It was opened in 2014 and has worked with over 80 artists since then.
Troy Town began as the first sculpture-specific ceramic workshop for artists in the UK. We now work with up to ten artists per year to produce ceramic sculpture in a high-craft environment using traditional and innovative processes. Connected to the Hoxton Street community garden in the East End of London, Troy Town Art Pottery provides free residencies for artists, the majority of whom have not worked with ceramic material before.
We are dedicated to the traditional and expansive techniques of eastern and western pottery and to improving the quality of artist ceramics. We fire with gas and wood, and we are the only artist-accessible pottery in the UK which does so. With all glazes and some clay bodies being produced in house, we offer a unique proposition to artists wishing to work with ceramic material.
In addition to our artistic programme, we provide high-quality pottery throwing classes which are available to everyone, and can be viewed and booked on the ‘evening classes’ page.
We also produce traditional reduced stoneware pottery in the Anglo-Japanese style, which we sell via our online store to support our programmes.
We hold studio exhibitions roughly twice a year, during which times we are open to visitors. However, if you would like to visit the pottery outside of these times then please email info@troytown.org.uk – we are generally open 10-6pm Monday-Thursday.
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Work produced at Troy Town has been shown at Tate St Ives; Tate Britain; The Victoria & Albert Museum, Studio Voltaire, The Turner Prize 2015; SculptureCenter New York; Kunstverein Freiburg; Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover; Hauser & Wirth; GoMA, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, and The British Art Show 8; along with scores of other galleries, fairs, museums and institutions.
In 2017, at Tate St Ives’ major historical ceramic survey, That Continuous Thing, two galleries were devoted to work made by artists at Troy Town.
Works produced at the pottery are now in the collection of the Tate, Victoria & Albert museum, Glasgow Museums, and the Arts Council Collection. We have worked with many artists of renown, with Anthea Hamilton, Steven Claydon, Nicole Wermers, Nicolas Deshayes, Allison Katz, Ian Law, and Sophie Von Hellermann among those notable alumni who have benefited from Troy Town Art Pottery’s collaborative and experimental environment.
We are currently working on a more formalised application form, but for now if you are an artist who has a proposal for working at the pottery which you believe would be of interest, or have any general enquiries, please email proposals@troytown.org.uk
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis and are discussed quarterly by the TTAP Advisory board.
Access is free for artists including most materials. Residencies are usually six weeks long and dates are flexible. All participating artists are expected to help out with all aspects of the ceramic process, including kiln stacking, firing, glaze mixing, and general tidying and organisation of the studio.
We do not sell clay or rent kiln time, though we do occasionally accept commissions/fabrications from artists including throwing, glaze development, etc. Please email the proposals address for fabrication enquiries.
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We also run evening classes for people wishing to learn to throw on the wheel, and other classes for more advanced ceramic techniques. Please refer to the ‘classes’ section of this website.
Troy Town is supported by Arts Council England and the friends of Troy Town. It was established in Hoxton with support from Create London and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Other supporters have included Open School East, The Elephant Trust, Henry Moore Foundation, The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and the Duke of Devonshire’s Charitable Trust.
