Since 1985 Philip Hardaker has lived in a seventeenth century packhorse inn on the outskirts of Stoke on Trent, working as a sculptor mainly in the public sector and undertaking many educational projects and private commissions.

Phil is an accumulator, a shifter of detritus collecting the flotsam and jetsom of our wasteful consumer society and transforming these materials into art. He represents his work as archaeological sculptural paintings made from clay and found objects. For thirty years he has been digging up ancient and modern ceramic shards from Staffordshire and around the world. He employs these fragments of past ages along with his own modelled and cast ceramic elements of heads, animals and aeroplanes in ceramic collages of considerable intricacy and beauty. Phil’s work has political and ecological objectives and concerns in communicating comment on historical events. The work is also intrinsically linked with being English and celebrating the past production of Staffordshire ceramics and creativity.

The philosophy, ideas and messages behind the work capture the age we live in with both serious intent and irony and a strong sense of humour. Phil is the lead artist working with Stoke City FC (The Potters) for the Homeground Project. The Homeground project is working with football clubs in towns and cities whose club origins are associated with a different craft industry.