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Elise Bishop

Born in 1971 in New Zealand.  Crossed the Tasman, back and forth, for a childhood filled with mud-pie making.  

Developed mind and body with a degree in literature and an apprenticeship in sound engineering.  Played music 

with all manner of folk for lots of years.  Took up clay full-time in 2005, and has a life’s work ahead of her.  In 2010 

she returned from Australia to live on Aotea (Great Barrier Island) in the Hauraki Gulf with her best friend Chris.

Elise’s interests are in creating work that has a close relationship to the earth from which it comes.  She experiments 

with a wide range of materials found on the island she now calls home.  Her tea bowls are made from a mix of 

various stoneware clays, river and beach sands, and are decorated with local slips.  Each one is unique, as well as 

functional for tea ceremony use.  Elise has studied teaware in Korea and Japan.

Lately she has begun to explore more purely sculptural works, pieces that are objects for contemplation rather than 

objects for use.  Still, they are informed by functionality: she picks through the roadside slips, looking for slabs of 

weathered kaolin to transform in her kiln - the ones that catch her eye are like naturally occurring serving dishes, 

mortars, and pestles.

Elise sporadically updates her website at elisebishop.com, where you are encouraged to sign up to her rarely used 

and super-private mailing list.
.....affordable, accessible art......
Open daily, 10 - 4 throughout the summer. Sundays 11-5pm
Closed Wednesdays in winter 
80 Hector Sanderson Road, Claris,
2 minutes from the airport
Ph 09 4290 580, 
email gallery.coordinator@aotea.org

Please note all work on this site is copyright of the individual artists.
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