Provocative Pots
New Ceramics by Chris Turrell and Simon Dredge
Here until 2nd August 2026
What stories survive?
Who gets remembered?
What happens when marginalised voices refuse silence?
To celebrate 25 Years of Gay Pride in Hull 2026, at a time when identity, memory, and cultural history remain fiercely contested, Studio Eleven Gallery presents Provocative Pots — a bold new exhibition of ceramic works by Liverpool-based artists Chris Turrell and Simon Dredge. Through clay, porcelain, slips, image, and narrative, the exhibition confronts the enduring overlap of queerness, visibility, politics, and survival.
Far from decorative objects, these works insist on ceramics as a radical storytelling medium — one capable of carrying histories often omitted from public memory. Both artists draw deeply from personal and collective LGBQT experience, asking what it means to preserve identity in fragile times, and how beauty itself can become an act of resistance.
For Chris Turrell, the exhibition is rooted in formative encounters with the uncompromising work of Derek Jarman and ceramic artist Angus Suttie. Growing up as a gay teenager in 1980s Britain, Turrell found few reflections of himself in mainstream culture until the emergence of independent film and politically engaged art.
“Influential figures such as Derek Jarman and Angus Suttie played a crucial role in my artistic and personal development,” says Turrell. “Their unflinching, political, and beautiful works — created at a time when being gay was fraught with societal and political challenges — continue to inform my practice today.”
Using stoneware clays layered with oxides, slips, underglazes, watercolour, and wax, Turrell creates intensely tactile surfaces scarred, sanded, distressed, and rebuilt. His vessels become emotional landscapes where vulnerability and defiance coexist.
Simon Dredge approaches ceramics as an archaeological act — excavating hidden histories embedded within queer culture. Working primarily in porcelain, Dredge incorporates photographic imagery, acrylic paint, ceramic glaze, and watercolour into layered surfaces that evoke both intimacy and erasure. His work is particularly inspired by Polari, the coded underground language historically used within Britain’s gay community as protection against persecution and criminalisation.
“History is a fabric woven with stories that should never be forgotten,” says Dredge.
The shadow and influence of Derek Jarman permeate the provocation — not simply as homage, but as a reminder of art’s capacity to confront political hostility with honesty and beauty. In an era marked by renewed debates around identity, censorship, and belonging,
Together, Turrell and Dredge transform ceramics into vessels of memory, protest, and tenderness — proving that clay can hold not only form, but history itself.
About
Studio Eleven is a gallery, studio and workshop space. We offer specialist studio space for ceramicists and a shared workshop for membership. Events include artists talks, performances, workshops, hire of the studio space and a rolling programme of exhibitions featuring contemporary ceramics and painting. The gallery at number 12 comprises of a main space for wall-based and plinth mounted work, and six display cases. The workshop space is situated on the first floor which also consists of a large, shared studio space with potters wheels and equipment.
Studio Eleven was a Hull City of Culture 2017 partner. A strategic partner in developing the bid and the wider promotion of Hull as a Culture City with interventions exhibited in London and beyond by Adele Howitt. During 2017 we delivered a contemporary exhibition programme with events, workshops, and special performances by Hull Time Based Arts.
Since it was established in 2009, Studio Eleven has continually pioneered the cause of Hull’s cultural quarter in the Fruit Market area, particularly Humber Street. The gallery and workshop now resides at no; 12 on Humber Street since March 2017. Eleven is in a prime visitor location, close to Hull Marina, The Deep, Hull Museums and the newly refurbished Ferens Art Gallery. Eleven was the first creative business on Humber Street have recently been joined by the new Humber Street Gallery.
Studio Eleven workshop and gallery was established in 2009 by artists. Founder & Owner, Adele Howitt continues to direct the enterprise,with a voluntary team of artists and potters who use the studio space .
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