About

Claire Ellis is a Canadian-born emerging ceramic artist and designer based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. While working as a chef at the internationally acclaimed restaurant, Attica, Claire made tableware for the tasting menu and created a ceramics studio within the restaurant. Claire’s chef experience influences her work through a focus on supply chains and deep experimentation. Her research focuses on material reuse in ceramics and incorporating transformed local by-products and waste streams into her work.

After leaving Attica to focus on ceramics in 2021, Claire has completed artist residencies and solo exhibitions annually, including a seven week artist residency in China’s ceramic capital, Jingdezhen, in 2024 followed by her first international solo exhibition.

Claire won the innovation award at the Warrandyte Pottery Expo and was a finalist in the Churchie, Woollahra, Omnia, Wyndham, Little Things, Remagine and Northern Beaches Environmental Art Prizes. Her work has been published in magazines, journals and books and she has been an invited guest speaker at several events including The Australian Ceramics Triennale in 2022, the Robin Boyd Foundation in 2023, Melbourne Town Hall in 2024 and as a guest lecturer at the Australian National University in 2025.

Claire is passionate about climate justice and aims to create opportunities for catharsis, political awareness and systems change through her work.