This pot by Gaby Guz is one of a group of pots which capture the monochromatic tones of winter, a season which has its own stark beauty and pared-back palette. One piece evokes the velvety blackness of long dark nights; another the permanently frozen landscape of the tundra; and the third, the bright- white, snow-dusted mountains of the Alps. The unglazed surface of the pots feels particularly appropriate to the bare earth of winter.

Gaby specialises in the alternative firing techniques of naked raku and saggar firing. With naked raku, the pot is removed from the kiln at a temperature of around 1000 degrees centigrade, put into a container and covered in sawdust which then bursts into flames. The resulting smoke is what causes the black markings on the surface of the pots. They are thus literally ‘painted with smoke'. These marks can be both random and designed and most of Gaby’s work explores an interaction of the two.