Spotlight Talk: ‘Natural Practice’ with Katie Spragg

Join us at Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset for a spotlight talk with artist Katie Spragg to explore how her recent experience as our artist-in-residence inspired the works in the exhibition ‘Natural Practice’. 

Over the course of 2023, Spragg immersed herself in a multi-site residency, traveling from Braemar, Scotland to Menorca and concluding in Somerset. Throughout this year-long project, the focus of Spragg‘s ceramic practice has been as much about gathering, observation and investigation as producing the finished sculptures for exhibition. Reflecting on her creative process, she considers how her artworks are themselves works in progress, markers in time along the way to the next idea or outcome. The accumulations of the three residency and research trips—plants, pottery fragments, drawings, stones, photographs, and the resulting ceramic ‘tests’—have occupied and enriched both her studio and thinking. 

Tickets are free, however advance booking is required. Please book for one of the following sessions:

• 2 – 3 pm
• 3 – 4 pm

About Katie Spragg
Combining clay with a range of processes, including animation and installation, Katie Spragg creates work that aims to arouse curiosity, specifically the way in which humans and plants coexist. She graduated from The Royal College of Art in 2016 with an MA Ceramics and Glass, having previously studied for a BA (Hons) 3D Materials Practice at Brighton University in 2010. Her work is held in collections and institutions internationally, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; British Ceramics Biennale and Sotheby’s. Alongside her teaching, Spragg is a founding member of Collective Matter, an outreach group who pioneer collaborative practice through clay, and has developed the ‘Clay for Dementia’ programme with the Garden Museum, London, UK.

Spragg’s recent exhibitions include: ‘Beyond Nature,’ Hauser & Wirth, London, UK (2022); ‘Plants, Porcelain, People,’ St. Peter Hungate, Norwich, UK (2021); ‘Ceramics: Facing the New,’ EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland (2021); ‘Gathering,’ Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton, UK (2020); ‘Nature Moves In,’ Ruup & Form, London, UK (2019); ‘David Gates: In Conversation,’ Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton, UK (2019); and ‘A Natural Selection,’ The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, UK (2019).

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This event coincides with the opening celebrations of Make Hauser & Wirth’s inaugural outdoor sculpture by artist Max Bainbridge, installed at Hauser & Wirth Somerset. Discover Bainbridge’s work at Hauser & Wirth Somerset from Saturday 10 February – Sunday 7 April.

Please be advised that photographs will be taken at this event for use on the Hauser & Wirth website, social media and in other marketing materials.