Brendan Adams

We love...

Brendan Adams throws and builds. He makes functional items and decorative wall pieces. He is so multi disciplined it is hard to know where to put him....other than that you always find the combination of funky form and most often some painting on the piece. He has the ability to make quirky people, a little bit naive, a little bit quirky and utterly charming. ARTFORM

Currently in the gallery…

Feature 

In 1987 Brendan started working in clay with 2 colleagues he meet at Otago Polytech where he majored in painting. With Bruce Haliday and Sue Newby he learnt how to slip cast. 
In 1988 he opened up a shop called “Out of the Blue” with his partner Kathryn Adams.  Together they have been making a living from pottery. 
Brendan is the creative person in the partnership. He says “I have been making a living from my craft for the last 28 years. I trained as a painter and it was colour and all the possibilities of form and texture that attracted me to ceramics, and I am still stuck in the mud! One of the great things about clay is that there never seems to be an end to what you can do with it. As someone who likes to muck around with lots of ideas, clay has been the perfect partner in crime. I really do feel I have only just started.” 

Brendan has amassed a large following of clientele who appreciate his fine New Zealand ceramics and creative and unusual sculpture. More recently his contemporary sculpture has seen him combine other materials with the ceramics such as steel, brass, aluminium and wood. His work has been exhibited throughout New Zealand in major competitions and exhibitions where he has won several awards, and is represented in the Auckland Museum, James Wallace and regional collections. Brendan has taught Sculpture and Design at Unitec and at the Auckland Studio Potters Society. He is currently working full-time at his home studio in Matakana.