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LinkedinFired Legacies: The Ceramic World of Rich Miller explores British colonial history at Watts Gallery until Sunday 28 June 2026.
From crowns to lampposts, piggybanks to rum bottles, ceramicist Rich Miller uses familiar objects and symbols to ask questions that spark conversations.
Fired Legacies: The Ceramic World of Rich Miller is the first solo exhibition by the artist, who is also well-known as a judge on Channel 4’s Great Pottery Throw Down.
More than 100 works feature in the exhibition which delves into his own mixed-race heritage and explores British colonial history, examining the complexities of migration and lasting cultural influences that have, for many years, inspired the artist’s practice.
While respecting their beauty, Rich considers other resonances: the crown and its links with empire, the lamppost and the recent ‘Raise the Colours’ campaign. His work asks questions that are intended to spark conversations around these issues, while promising no answers.
Rich said: “Much of my work explores British colonial history and my place in it. I have a real fascination with social history and the way we interact with objects, and the hierarchical structures that exist. All of the individual pieces I make ask the questions that I’ve always been thinking myself, such as how was British society formed, how was the wealth created and why am I, as a mixed-race person, here in Britain?”
“I’m delighted to be presenting this work at Watts Gallery, a place I’ve known for years. As a student in Farnham, we visited Watts Chapel and the Gallery, and when Watts Gallery was restored in 2010, Froyle Tiles was commissioned to create tiles for several spaces.”
A graduate of Surrey Institute of Art and Design (now UCA), he spent 20 years of his career at the helm of Froyle Tiles, the bespoke Surrey-based stoneware tile company.
All work is for sale with profits supporting the Art for All community learning programme.
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