Alex Simpson is an artist working primarily with drawing, clay and materials associated with ceramic production. She has a background in Illustration and graduated with an MA in Ceramics & Glass from the Royal College of Art in 2015. In 2017 she was selected for the Award exhibition at the British Ceramics Biennial.
‘I am interested in the connection between our physical and emotional selves, using clay to translate the subconscious into object, to give forms to both the gut and the gut feeling. My practice is in many ways invested in material experimentation and I enjoy using clay whether fired or unfired in unexpected ways combining it with other materials and processes.’
www.alex-simpson.co.uk
instagram @alex.simpson
Alison Rees is interested in clay as a carrier of human experience. She started her career with a degree in Archaeology where she was introduced to clay through the excavation of pottery sherds and natural sediments. Alison graduated from the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 2014 with a MA in Ceramics. In 2015, she won the Design History Society’s postgraduate essay prize for her research into the life cycle of London’s post-war ceramic murals. She is currently a PhD Ceramics researcher at the RCA.
‘I am a maker of things, primarily from clay. My work explores the smaller scale; flatness and thinness; small manoeuvres and progressions; abstract and overlooked details; minimality and enough-ness; pattern and the role of the grid. I examine the correspondence between these elements and the material, clay. I frequently work within limited parameters and use a minimal amount of materials.’
www.alisonrees.com
twitter @alisonlrees
Isobel Church is a multidisciplinary sculptor whose work sits somewhere between fable and science, fiction and observation. With a background in Anthropology and Chinese art, her research draws on symbolic language and cultural history, as well as scientific mapping and discovery. Combining traditional techniques with new technologies, many of the works can be described as ceremonial objects that incorporate and meditate on recent data and imagery. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2014, and is represented by Montoro 12 Gallery.
‘I’m interested in how an object can create tactile connections with that which is vast, distant or ineffable; establishing intimacy with natural phenomena.’
www.isobelchurch.com
twitter @Isochurch
Lauren Ilsley is an artist who predominantly makes sculpture using clay, digital technologies and natural processes. She works from her studio in South East London, which she set up after graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2015 with a Master’s degree in Ceramics and Glass.
'I am interested in the human interface between the digital and material world. My work investigates the human need to control our environment and how we are controlled by artificial and natural sources. I make objects that are devices activated by processes I have engineered or natural phenomena, creating connections between the material and the immaterial, causing objects to move beyond their original form.'
www.laurenilsley.com
instagram @lauren.ilsle
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Nicholas Middleton is an artist with a background in painting and print, and interests in photography, film and video. He studied printmaking at Winchester School of Art and is currently a research student at the Royal College of Art. As a painter he has exhibited widely in the UK, as well as abroad, and has been selected for the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize five times, twice winning the Visitors' Choice Prize. Recent work has investigated the relationship between photography, film and painting. He also writes the Photo-Analogue blog about film photography.
‘Fundamental to my practice is the image. In a world of proliferating images, examination of how the image, tethered to reality, is constructed, processed, displayed, has underpinned my approaches in painting, photography and the moving image.’
twitter @itsnotaphoto
instagram @parallel_movement
photo-analogue.blogspot.com
somethoughtsonrailwaystations.blogspot.com
Sarah Wishart is a writer, researcher and artist interested in performance, photography, storytelling and the city. Sarah studied performance and live art at Roehampton, Queen Mary's and Leeds Universities, and completed her PhD on "A Provenance of Performance: Excavating new art histories through a consideration of re-enactment and the perspectives of the audience" in 2018. This looked at Jeremy Deller's 'Battle of Orgreave' and Graeme Miller's 'Linked'. Sarah predominantly works with words in different ways, she is working on several fiction and film projects including a walking-road-movie with Nicholas Middleton and a feature length collaborative film with Forest Fringe. She is currently working on Sluice magazine as the guest editor for the Spring/Summer edition which will explore artists and projects that adopt nom de plumes or assume alter egos or ‘perform’ identities in order to either facilitate self-actualisation or undermine prescribed identity/societal structures. This will include a feature on the Live Art Development Agency's Lois Keidan.
‘I am an artist fascinated by how artists, writers and performers work - unpacking and repacking the processes of artistic and creative practice is at the heart of much of my work. In my PhD - I looked at what happened to create two key artworks and how processes of documentation might be expanded to include the memories of audiences. In my work for Undertow - I am considering processes and practices of encouragement that help us to make work when we are getting over anxiety, depression or trauma.’
www.sarahwishart.com
twitter @sarahwishart
Tana West is an artist working predominantly with ceramic processes, using the language of ceramic materials and object making to connect with social, political and historical contexts. Tana Studied sculpture at Central St Martins, completing her MA at the Royal College of Art in Ceramics and Glass in 2014. Whilst at the RCA she received the Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Travel Award to go on a journey overland by train to St. Petersburg to visit a museum of Soil science. Since graduating Tana has been involved with several place specific and collaborative projects including investigating apple culture in Somerset, working with environmental historians examining our relationship to water, wading into the mud and as an Anglo-Swedish Society Scholar at Konsfack University in Stockholm.West won the Award at the British Ceramics Biennial in 2017 for her [UN]WOVEN project and has been selected for the Jerwood makers Open for 2019.
‘My practice and research methods are mobile, the process of making work begins with a journey, the path it takes is contingent on what is found and can be transported. Like a present-day hunter gather in search of materials, I have collected and used estuarine mud, excavated clay, brick and rock fragments to make glazes and clay bodies which are regionally specific. I am semi-scientific in approach, experimental and with a certain acceptance of uncertainty, this way of working allows for materials to express their vibrancy. I also appreciate ceramic objects’ abilities for deception, it can pretend to be other things but is ultimately always ceramic with all that entails. The materiality of ceramics has a wide vocabulary: ideas, making and objects weave together to navigate contemporary concerns.’
www.tanawest.co.uk
instagram & twitter @west_adrift
