Karen Hanvidge is a ceramic artist currently based in Renfrewshire. She graduated with a BA(Hons) in Ceramics Design in 2011 from Glasgow School of Art and has been working from her home studio in Renfrew since then. Her local town of Paisley and its rich architectural history have influenced many of her designs in form and surface decoration.

Having spent her early childhood growing up in California in the 1960s, Karen has been largely influenced by colour, repeating patterns, textures and form. The art and music of the times with visuals of psychedelia, optical illusions, eastern mysticism and intense colours shaped her creative interests. She is often pushed to examine the fantasy in a design to create a whole new perspective to a form.

Karen works primarily with slabs of clay making functional and decorative objects designing her own templates in order to create new shapes and forms. In her most recent designs she has used her own artwork and photographs to create new ceramic decal surface designs which she painstakingly cuts out and applies to her pieces to compliment the forms. Her own photographs continue to push her in exciting new directions with her slab-built ceramics designs.

Karen has her ceramic art in private collections around the world and has sold her work in several shops and galleries in Scotland. She was commissioned to make the finalists art prizes for the 2016 Scottish Album of the Year Awards (SAY Awards) and has ran ceramic workshops for Paisley 2021. Her career journey also led her to working as a pottery instructor onboard a Fred Olsen cruise ship to Canada for four weeks. She will be running ceramic workshops with Outspoken Arts Scotland this year.

Karen Hanvidge ceramics are now available to buy in FOLD.

FOLD Craft & Design store is open Thursday – Saturday 12pm - 4pm.