Philip Eglin (b.1959, Gibraltar) studied at Staffordshire Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, London. He was awarded the prestigious Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts in 1996, and The Scottish Gallery has exhibited his work regularly since the 1980s.
Widely regarded as one of Britain’s most important contemporary ceramic artists, Eglin has built an international reputation for work that is provocative, playful and deeply informed by both ceramic history and popular culture. His post-modern aesthetic draws on an eclectic range of influences, from Gothic Madonnas and Renaissance painting to Abstract Expressionism, football culture, graffiti and mass-produced consumer objects. He frequently incorporates moulded forms taken from everyday throwaway items, alongside expressive painterly surfaces and raw, gestural mark-making.
Working across sculpture, vessels, dishes and installation, Eglin moves fluidly between the figurative and the abstract, using clay as both canvas and narrative device. His work often juxtaposes seemingly contradictory subjects, sacred and profane, reverent and irreverent, sophisticated and crude, creating what he describes as “fusions of seemingly disparate historical and contemporary subjects.”
Recent exhibitions have revisited recurring themes within his practice, including the acclaimed Strange Bedfellows at The Scottish Gallery in 2021, which explored the tension and humour between religious imagery and popular iconography through a new series of figures and raku-fired dishes. The exhibition highlighted Eglin’s continued fascination with image-making, contrast and contradiction, as well as the immediacy and unpredictability of ceramic processes.
Philip Eglin will be the subject of a major solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery in April 2027.
Public collections include:
Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA; Mint Museum, North Carolina, US
