Curated by Andy Mac
Surf Hotel
35 The Esplanade Torquay
April 2026 - Permanent

Gerry Wedd is a potter and a surfer. He lives and works in Port Elliot, South Australia, where he hand-builds and paints his ceramics. Gerry has been making pots for forty years. His work ranges from functional domestic ware to large-scale installations and public art. From 1986 to 2006, he worked with Mambo, producing drawings for T-shirts and fabric prints.

Gerry is a six-time South Australian State Surfing Champion, winning the titles consecutively in the 1970s. ‘Social commentary has been key to my practice since I worked for Mambo. It remains an impetus for much of what I make.’

Gerry Wedd’s Claw Pot is a keystone work at Surf Hotel, a stoneware biography in-the-round, commissioned to tell the tale of Torquay surf icon Doug ‘Claw’ Warbrick. Claw is a pivotal figure in surfing and co-founder of the Rip Curl brand in 1969. The pot features significant events and sartorial highlights from Doug’s surfing and entrepreneurial life.

Gerry’s blue-and-white ceramics subvert historical and cultural expectations. At first glance, his work echoes 18th-century willow patterns and other blue-and-white traditions, such as Chinese porcelain and Dutch Delftware. Yet a closer look reveals subversive histories, often centred on countercultural figures, political events, popular culture, and Australian identity.

Gerry’s signature style features cobalt underglaze decoration on functional forms such as plates, tiles, and pots. Blue-and-white porcelain dates back to the mid-14th century at the Jingdezhen kilns during the Yuan dynasty. Its cobalt, mainly imported from Persia via the Silk Road, is called "Sumali qing" and is often referred to as "Mohammedan blue," highlighting its Islamic trade roots.

Gerry’s encyclopaedic knowledge of surfing culture stems from an insider’s perspective, gained through competitive and recreational surfing for over 40 years. The Claw Pot joins a pantheon of Gerry’s pots honouring Australian surfing champions, including Bernard ‘Midget’ Farrelly, Nat Young, Wayne Lynch, Peter Drouyn, George Greenough, and Michael ‘MP’ Peterson.