Jason Marks is a ceramic artist, designer and educator whose work asks what happens when clay, that ancient and familiar material, is placed in conversation with innovative processes. His practice explores value: the value of hand skill, of industrial knowledge, of ornament, pattern, and the objects we choose to live with.
A traditional craftsman, Marks uses a range of contemporary methods to reconsider the language of ceramics. Tiles, architectural motifs and repeated geometric forms are not simply copied; they are shifted, folded, distorted and made strange. In works such as Gothic Rollers, patterns associated with historic floors and ecclesiastical buildings are rolled into three-dimensional objects. A surface becomes a form. Decoration becomes structure. The familiar is quietly unsettled.
Marks trained in 3D Design, specialising in ceramics, and completed an MA in Design at Central Saint Martins. Alongside his studio practice, Marks teaches at Arts University Plymouth, where he supports emerging makers to think carefully about process, context and the possibilities of material practice.
With commissions ranging from Louis Vuitton to The Crown Estate, his work is held in public and private collections across Europe, and has been widely exhibited, including at ZHA and the Leach Pottery. Across making, teaching and research, his practice asks how ceramics can hold history, technology and contemporary life in the same object.
