Suri is an American born British National, living in Henley-On Thames, Oxfordshire. She completed a European Honours Programme based in Rome, through Rhode Island School of Design. Her Fine Arts degree focussed on painting, printmaking, and glass (working under Dale Chihuly).
Suri’s passion for ceramics began with a weekly studio course she attended at Oxford College for a number of years. Once she organised her own studio, in a converted caravan in her garden, she couldn’t get enough of the joy of working with clay, eventually committing to a full-time focus as a ceramic artist.
Suri specialises in the intricate Nerikomi ceramic technique, tracing its roots back to 7th-century China. By infusing coloured stains into porcelain, she achieves captivating patterns without surface painting. Her method is similar to millefiori glasswork, and involves meticulously layering slices of coloured clay in a block. After slicing and reconfiguring the block multiple times, she takes thin cross-sectional slices to reveal intricate designs, then rolls the slices into a sheet, cuts the shape needed from the sheet and places it into a mould she has made. After careful drying, the pieces are sanded, fired, glazed and fired again. She is a painter using vibrantly coloured clay within the canvas of white porcelain to create deliberately organic hand built vessels.
