Objects of Contemplation

Adam Buick
Drawing upon his longstanding interest and knowledge of geology, Adam Buick unearths not only the physical resources for his jars but inspiration for their aesthetic. The way he observes, experiences and understands landscape is reflected in the embellishment of their surfaces and the materials within. Taking inspiration from the form of the Korean moon jar, Buick’s thrown and coiled interpretations play with scale and the introduction of locally sourced clays and organic materials. Buick works from his studio at Llanferran on the North Coast of St. David’s peninsula, Southwest Wales. His work is held in several public collections, including Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth, UK; and National Museum, Cardiff, UK. His selected exhibitions include: ‘British Ceramics Biennial,’ Spode China Hall, Stoke on Trent, UK (2019); ‘Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery,’ The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK (2018); and the UK Pavilion at Cheongju Craft Biennale, Cheongju, South Korea (2017).

Helen Carnac
Setting up her studio in the early 1990s and now based in rural Somerset, Helen Carnac develops projects using methodologies that are rooted in an acute awareness of physical location, place and working practices. Exploring the explicit connections between material, process and maker, she has worked with many materials in numerous contexts, but her area of expertise is the combination of vitreous enamel on metal. Projects include ‘Holding Space: Contemporary Enamel Vessels,’ Springfield Art Museum, Springfield MO (2023); ‘Like Paper,’ Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h, Montreal, Canada (2022); ‘Impertinente,’ Musée des Beaux-Arts de Limoges, France (2022); Blaze – International Contemporary Enamel Art Exhibition, Taiwan (2018); Meister der Moderne, Munich, Germany (2017); UK Pavilion at Cheongju Craft Biennale, Cheongju, South Korea (2017).

Samuel Collins
Predominantly working in marble and limestone, Samuel Collins’s work is informed by a curiosity for the natural world, surrealist forms and his pursuit to find a balance between space, mass and materiality. His recent works reflect the abstracted anomalies shaped by nature and incorporate a range of materials that can offer a second purpose within his practice, such as discarded building stones pulled from local churches or reclaimed limestone masonry. Samuel Collins graduated in 2019, having studied Design & Craft at the University of Brighton, UK. He now works from his studio on the edge of Dungeness Nature Reserve in Kent. His recent exhibitions include ‘Atmosphere,’ Francis Gallery, Bath, UK (2023); ‘Materiality,’ Kindred House, Margate, UK (2022); and ‘Hard Knocks,’ The Radford Gallery, London, UK (2022).

David Gates
David Gates’s recurring motif is the collecting cabinet, the cabinet of curiosities. His work has a relationship with agricultural and industrial architecture. Once finding these forms and structures along stretches of the River Thames and its estuarine landscape, Gates’s work is finding new but analogous alignments and resonances with the silos, barns, sheds and pylons of his new working context in Somerset. David Gates was awarded a BA (Hons) in Three-Dimensional Design, Furniture from the Ravensbourne College of Art, UK and in 2017 a PhD from King’s College London, UK with his thesis ‘The Makers’ Tongue: Small Stories of Positioning and Performance in the Situated Discourses of Contemporary Crafts Practitioners.’ Gates’s work is exhibited and collected internationally. Selected exhibitions include: ‘M2 Artists,’ ASC Gallery, London, UK, (2022); ‘Taste Contemporary, Odd and Even: A Collection,’ Maison Louis Carre, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France, (2021); and the UK Pavilion at Cheongju Craft Biennale, Cheongju, South Korea (2017).

Akiko Hirai
Akiko Hirai’s vessel forms focus on the interconnectedness between maker, the object and the viewer. Hirai’s Moon Jars push her material to its limits, with the originality of her process evidence of the unstable and unpredictable nature of clay and the fire itself. Inspired by the moon jars of Korea which embrace cracks, stains and chips from years of use, Hirai intentionally references the human condition through the making of her vessels with the shifting outcome of color, the scarred and disrupted surface, and scale and generosity of form as unpredictable as the vagaries of life. London-based Akiko Hirai was born in Shizuoka, Japan and her work is included in permanent collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK; and the Keramik Museum, Westerwald, Germany. Internationally exhibited, her work featured in the exhibition ‘Things of Beauty Growing’ at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven CT (2017), which travelled to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK (2018); ‘Pioneering Women’ at Oxford Ceramics Gallery, Oxford, UK (2021); ‘On foot: An exhibition curated by Jonathan Anderson’ at Offer Waterman, London, UK (2023). Hirai was shortlisted for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize in 2019.

Marianne Huotari
Marianne Huotari is a Helsinki-based ceramic and textile artist who reinterprets traditions in a modern way by applying a version of the classic Finnish textile technique ‘Ryijy’ together with unpredictable materials. ‘Ryijy’ translates to ‘thick cloth,’ referring to a method of loom weaving tapestries often depicting geometric shapes or florals in colors traditionally sourced from plant dyes. Referencing these traditional Finnish tapestries, Huotari sculpts hundreds of oblong ceramic beads and petals by hand before sewing them onto a metal frame with wire. The beads layer and bubble at will, similar to the woven knots in ‘Ryijy.’ Using ceramics in place of woolen yarn, her color palette mimics that of the original woolen fibers: creams and light greens, alongside glowing pinks and blues, populate her tapestries and free-standing sculptures. Huotari is a member of the Arabia Art Department Society in Helsinki, Finland and her work has been shown widely throughout Europe, Asia and the US. Huotari serves as the Creative Director for Helsinki-based design and rug company Finarte. In 2022, Huotari was shortlisted for the Loewe Craft Prize and her work was exhibited at the Seoul Museum of Craft Arts, Seoul, South Korea.

Konrad Koppold
Konrad Koppold’s thin-walled vessel explore the hidden inner qualities of wood. Sourced from the root area of an almost 200-year-old local oak tree that had come down after a flood, Koppold creates a work characterized by very wide annual rings. By turning the green wood on four, shifted and inclined axes, he seeks to play with asymmetry, combining a clear design with the living structure of the wood. The vessel is ebonized using the coloring properties of tannic acid, a natural component of oak. The final finish accentuates the surface variability even further, revealing the wood’s individual grain structure with a deliberate and discernible haptic effect. Koppold has exhibited at Kunst Schaffen, Robbe & Berking Museum Flensburg, Germany (2023); Zeughausmesse, Berlin, Germany (2022); MK&G Messe, Kunst-und Gewerbemuseum, Hamburg, Germany (2022); Fine Arts, Stadthalle Wuppertal, Germany (2021); and Grassi Messe, Leipzig, Germany (2021). He was also recently a finalist at the Cheongju Craft Biennale, Cheongju, South Korea in 2023 and the Loewe Craft Prize in 2022.

Deirdre McLoughlin
For Deirdre McLoughlin, the archetypal form of the ovoid is central to her work. Imbued with an intense physicality and dedication to perfection of form and surface, her sculptures are layered with meaning and charged with movement, a feeling of power, a sense of purity. Her making process is slow and demanding; her pieces undergo a protracted process of polishing and multiple firings. This can last for days into weeks. The work in an instance feels right. Selected exhibitions include ‘McLoughlin,’ Modern Shapes Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium (2022); ‘Modern Masters,’ Galerie Handwerk, Munich, Germany (2022); ‘Life Rhythm,’ Fen Ditton Gallery, Cambridge, UK (2022); and ‘High Fired,’ Franzis Engels Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2022). McLoughlin has also been the recipient of multiple awards, including an Honorary Doctorate at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland in 2021; a Diploma of Honor at the Korean International Ceramic Biennale in 2019; and was a finalist of the Loewe Craft Prize in 2018.

Richard McVetis
Richard McVetis’s practice centers around drawing and process, specifically hand embroidery. He explores themes of geology, cosmology, the language of time, permanence and impermanence. Spanning the macro and micro, he records time and space through multiple dots, lines and crosses, exploring the subtle differences that emerge through ritualistic and habitual making. The inscribed stitches mark the hand’s rhythms, a delicate performance of obsessive intricacy, refinement and gesture. They record human presence, time and decay, each stitch or line acting as a marker for lived time, an embodiment of thought and patience. These physical, tactile and repetitive modes allow him to see and think, to occupy a space. Richard McVetis studied at Manchester School of Art before studying at the Royal College of Art, where he now teaches. McVetis has been shortlisted for several distinguished prizes, including the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, UK (2023); the Jerwood Drawing Prize, UK (2011 and 2017); and the Loewe Craft Prize (2018). In addition, McVetis has shown work nationally and internationally at several exhibitions, including ‘Threads,’ Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2023); The British Textile Biennial, UK (2021); ‘RENEW,’ Kettles Yard, Cambridge UK, (2019) ; Loewe Craft Prize, Design Museum, London, UK (2018); ‘Form + Motion,’ a major exhibition with the British Council, South Korea (2017). In 2022, his solo show was at the Craft Study Centre, Farnham, UK.

Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan’s approach to making fluctuates between the use of intuition, geometry and material expression. His work is characterized by its unexpected marrying of materials and experimental approach to traditional processes. Morgan’s work challenges both the physical and cultural connotations of his chosen materials, reimagining the ancient craft of Venetian glassblowing technique ‘murrini.’ These new material investigations continue his exploration of industrial materials and our conflicting relationship with the built environment. Harry Morgan is based in Manchester since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2014 and has exhibited widely throughout the UK and internationally. As a finalist of the 2019 Loewe Craft Prize, his work was exhibited at Isamu Noguchi‘s indoor garden ‘Heaven’ in Tokyo, Japan, where he was awarded a Special Mention. His sculptures are also held in the permanent collections of the Victorian & Albert Museum, London, UK; The National Museum of Northern Ireland; The European Museum of Modern Glass, Coburg, Germany; and the Loewe Foundation, Madrid, Spain.

James Shaw
James Shaw is a London-based designer who makes objects and furniture. His work aims to bring out the inherent beauty of diverse materials, often uniting or contrasting handmade and tactile qualities with the structured and systematized. Frequently his work considers the resources around us, challenging the notions of waste and value. He is best known for his work with recycled plastics and his self-built extruding gun, which produces blobby, gloopy and baroque forms, creating objects of unexpected beauty from a problematic material. Shaw has exhibited internationally, including at the Design Museum, London, UK; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York NY. Past awards include being nominated for the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year Award (2013) and winning the Arc Chair Design Award (2013). Shaw‘s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York NY; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada; and Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany, among others.

Helen O’Shea
Helen O‘Shea is a textile artist based in Cork, Ireland, whose work looks at the notional prospect of what is beyond our vision in the depths of the oceans. Inspired by the volume of plastics in the oceans, her imagination has been fueled by the revelation of colonies of microorganisms growing on the gyres of plastic floating there. The idea of inorganic plastics supporting organic life has offered the framework to explore fictional speculations using waste material. In 2017, she graduated with a first-class BA (Hons) in Contemporary Applied Art from CIT Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork, Ireland. She did a residency in Iceland in 2015 funded by Arts Council, which led to a shift in her practice after being impressed with the way materials were utilized to the fullest. This idea of extracting more out of waste has stayed with her and is the basis of the work she now makes. O’Shea attained her MRes in 2021, which focused on new narratives for waste plastics. O’Shea has exhibited internationally, select exhibitions include ‘FOR THE SAKE OF,’ Artecetera Tielrode, Temse, Belgium (2023); ‘Révélations,’ Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France (2023); ‘Masters of the future. Crafts and Design in Europe,’ Castle of San Jorge, Seville, Spain (2023). Her work has also been highlighted in Crafts Magazine and featured in Irish Arts Review.

Mark Reddy
Mark Reddy is an artist maker working with wood, metal and found objects to explore and question our relationship with the utilitarian and functional form of the spoon and the sculptural and symbolic properties of his materials. Reddy abstracts the form of the spoon through animated sculptural totems, singular and grouped, referencing the interdependence and animacy of the living world. Reddy has worked as an illustrator and creative director in design, print and television, receiving international recognition. His works in metal and wood have been exhibited widely at galleries, including The Study, London, UK; Primavera, Cambridge, UK; Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, UK; Lynne Strover Gallery, Cambridge, UK. Recent exhibitions include ‘a contour, a curve – the lie of the land,’ ‘making arrangements,’ ‘organic forms,’ Gallery 57, Arundel, UK (2018 – 2019). Awards include the D&AD Awards, Creative Circle Awards, British Television Awards, Creative Circle Presidents’ Lifetime Achievement Award.

Romilly Saumarez Smith
Romilly Saumarez Smith was a bookbinder for 25 years, having trained at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts, London, UK, in the mid-1970s. Around 1997, she started to use copper wire on book bindings and this led her to make jewelry and, later, objects which are somewhat uncategorisable. Saumarez Smith is drawn to hidden worlds, taking metal detecting finds which have lain lost and unseen beneath the soil for hundreds of years, filling them with new life above the ground. Opposed to striving for mechanical perfection, through her work, Saumarez Smith ask us to reignite our senses. With her jeweler’s eye and through the hands of her studio ‘translators’, in this case Carola Solcia, who have become her hands as her own do not work anymore, she combines fragments of the past with the richest of materials—silver and gold, coral, seed pearls and diamonds. Mythical worlds are conjured through intricate artistry and the salvaged transformed into new artefacts. Her previous exhibitions include ‘Poetry in Ocean,’ Gill Wing Gallery, London, UK (2023); ‘Uncommon Beauty – objects of curiosity and wonder,’ Makers Guild Wales, Cardiff, UK (2023); and ‘Homo Faber – Crafting a more human future,’ Giorgio Cini Foundation, Venice, Italy (2022).

Katie Spragg
Working predominantly in ceramics, Katie Spragg explores our interconnected relationship with nature, questioning the evolving patterns in which humans and plants co-exist. She is interested in how plants behave and how their behavior can help us reconsider our own approach to communities, care, landscape and our place in the world. Spragg often creates work in response to participation of other people. Recent projects include ‘Lambeth Wilds,’ Garden Museum, London, UK (2019 – 2020), created with Lambeth Young Carers and Clay for Dementia group; ‘Plants, Porcelain People,’ Hungate Medieval Art, Norwich, UK (2021), a collaborative exhibition with Norwich International Youth Project;’ and ‘Sowing the Seed’ (2022), workshops for children at a community allotment in partnership with GROW Eastbourne and Towner Gallery, which was nominated for a HAF government award. Spragg’s catalog of work includes a piece in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK, a permanent installation at the Garden Museum and commissions for the British Ceramics Biennale and Sotheby’s.

Derek Wilson
An unapologetic thrower, ceramicist Derek Wilson consistently challenges his discipline. Focusing on his approach to making, he combines his minimal aesthetic with craftmanship, a wealth of material knowledge and a propensity to propel modern ceramics through the reinterpretation of its form. Questioning functionality, Wilson uses the vessel as a means of artistic expression by exploring free and geometric abstraction, as well as the points of convergence between the utilitarian and the sculptural. Through a process of altering and assembling, Wilson’s practice involves the reconstruction of archetypal vessels into complex abstract forms, drawing emphasis on the subtle tonalities in surface quality and the distribution of light and shadow. Wilson’s recent exhibitions include ‘Forming Shadows,’ Idée Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan (2023) and Collectible Design Fair, Modern Shapes Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium (2022). His work has been acquired by the Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Jane Yang-D’Haene
Jane Yang-D’Haene creates ceramics inspired by Korean ‘dalhangari,’ or moon jars, describing the historical framework that moon jars provide not as a blueprint nor as an adversary, but as a vehicle for contemporary experimentation. Her relationship to clay itself is similar: Yang-D’Haene explores and stretches its bounds without being restrained by its history. This exploration results in conceptually challenging objects that refute traditional relationships between form and function. In this way, the vessels read like celebrations not only of nature and the universe at large but of earth in particular and, therefore, of the Yang D’Haene’s beloved medium. Born in South Korea, Jane Yang-D’Haene moved to New York in 1984 where she attended the Cooper Hewitt School of Architecture. Yang-D’Haene began working with ceramics in 2016, drawing upon her cultural heritage and multifaceted design background to create a highly researched and fresh body of work. Her recent exhibitions include ‘Handle Me with Care,’ Bienvenu, Steinberg & J, New York NY (2023); ‘Earthbound’ and ‘Jeong,’ The Future Perfect, New York NY (2023); and ‘Hand / Made,’ Galerie Italienne, Paris, France (2023).

Jinya Zhao
Through the medium of glass, Jinya Zhao explores themes of the environment, emotions and personal experiences. In her current practice and research, she questions how blown glass can connect maker and viewer and its potential to evoke memories and the imagination through sublime qualities such as color, obscurity, revelation and form. Prompting a sense of ‘synesthetic touch’, the visual experience of her work enables others to follow their own journey from vision to touch. Re-invoking a multisensory approach to her blown glass artwork, she aims to extend beyond the visual and to connect us with the unreachable. Born and raised in China, Jinya Zhao received her BA in 2017 from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China and her MA (2019) and MRes (2021) from The Royal College of Art, London, UK. In 2019, Zhao was invited to be an artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale IL and, in 2022, Taoxichuan Glass Studio in Jingdezhen, China. She is currently pursuing her PhD at The Royal College of Art. Her work is collected by museums and galleries internationally, including Prague Gallery of Czech Glass, Czech Republic; Qingdao Art Museum, China; Southern Illinois University, Carbondale IL; Ulster Museum, Belfast, UK; and Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK.