British Art Fair 2023

Matt Smith is a multi award-winning artist based in Ireland and England. Acclaimed solo exhibitions include Losing Venus at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Flux: Parian Unpacked at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Who Owns History at Hove Museum and Queering the Museum at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. In 2015/16 he was artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He holds a PhD from the University of Brighton and was Professor at Konstfack University, Stockholm.

In 2020 he was awarded the Brookfield Prize at Collect and the Contemporary Art Society acquired a body of his work for Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. His work is also held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Walker Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, National Museum of Scotland, National Museum of Northern Ireland and the Crafts Council collection.

Trouble With History

The work is created from a found, vintage, needlepoint which is unpicked and restitched by the artist. Based on paintings by known male artists, the needlepoints were originally produced for amateur, anonymous sewers to stitch. Idealised figures are presented in bucolic settings, their faces replaced by the artist with neutral repeating patterns which disturb the working of the image. By interrupting without substituting a definitive alternative narrative, the work leaves the reinterpretation open for the viewer, questioning the heterosexual constraints of such imagery and prompting a re-consideration of the sitters' skin colour and identity and questioning the viewer’s complacent acceptance of such imagery. Works from the series are held by the V&A, the Crafts Council, Brighton Museum and the National Museum of Northern Ireland.

A 31 Note Lovesong

Developed while artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum, A 31 Note Lovesong uses molds from the former Spode ceramics factory in Stoke on Trent and casts from objects in the V&A’s archives. Cast in black parian clay, the works create a portrait of the workers who made the molds, and comment on the silence in the former factory. The juxtaposition of composite objects within the work reflects the arbitrary grouping that occur within museum stores. The work was selected for the British Ceramics Biennial and has been shown at London Design Festival and Gustavsberg Konsthall Stockholm.

British Amy Hughes’s practice is both fuelled by and symbolic of the highly prestigious Porcelain wares produced at the Royal Sèvres Factory in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Hughes’ works reference and pay homage to the originals, but are created with a freer approach, giving them a new lease of life.

After Alhambra pieces take inspiration from the large lustre vases produced during the Nasrid Dynasty (the last Muslim Dynasty in the Iberian peninsula, ruling Granada) in the 14th and 15th centuries which became romantically known as 'Alhambra Vases', and of which only 8 remain in semi-intact existence today. The skill, the legend, the intrigue surrounding these vases captivated and fuelled my fascination to explore a contemporary response to the stunning relics. The forms, the two wing-like handles, the horizontal decorations all reference the originals, the rawness in composition and materiality nodding to their faded beauty. Drawing studies of their intricate surface pattern have been enlarged and explored on the coil and slab built forms creating exciting pattern and shape with a colourful and lively approach.

After Amphora pieces take inspiration from ancient Greek pottery, with a concern for form and decoration. The vases seek to 'talk' about the distinctive ancient storage jars and the intricate decoration that was painted upon them, now explored and enlarged on the coil and slab built forms, creating exciting patterns and shapes with a colourful, lively and painterly approach that gives them a new vibrant lease of life.

The After Alhambra and After Amphora pieces may take historical inspiration from ceramic artefacts of the Nasrid dynasty and Ancient Greece, but their modern day interpretation and reworking can be said to be directly influenced by contemporary culture(s), including fashion and print, explored through the bold use and application of colour, surface treatment and pattern across a form. They playfully explore the relationship between clay and textiles. The use of texture creates almost fabric like aesthetics on these ceramics, through layers of slip application creating depth akin to a knit or heavy weave, with more exposed or 'faded' areas gauze-like or requiring a darn. Areas of the transparent glaze application vs those unglazed, the smooth vs the rough, a silk vs heavy cotton, playing with light and movement. The wing-like handles and appendages are kindred to pattern cutting but with a rawness of a torn unfinished edge like a fray or a rip.

The Vase Studies are hand built porcelain vases that take inspiration from historic and contemporary Meissen production pieces. The vases seek to ‘talk’ about the elaborate hand painted floral wares produced at the historic German porcelain manufactory. Playful in their collage-like approach, the ambiguous decoration is extracted from enlarged illustrations made of the originals, then explored in raised relief on the vase surfaces. Rewarding curiosity, the pieces boast colourful and painterly interiors referencing the extravagant palettes used by the manufactory, with a refined gold lustre rim for renewed grandeur.

Amy Hughes works and exhibits internationally, including high profile Collect art fair with the Crafts Council with Cynthia Corbett Gallery and a spell as Artist in Residence at Konstfack School, Stockholm, Sweden. She was nominated to represent the UK in ‘New Talent’ at the European Ceramic Context 2014 as well as being shortlisted for the inaugural Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize 2014 for artists who show an exceptional command of ceramics, alongside an awareness of the heritage of ceramic craft.

In 2015, Hughes was chosen as the first Ceramics and Industry Artist in Residence at the Victoria & Albert Museum working in collaboration with 1882Ltd, as well as being selected as one of eleven artists for AWARD at the British Ceramics Biennial ‘presenting new works exemplifying the energy and vitality of the best of British contemporary ceramics practice.’
In 2018 her first solo show Garniture at Croome Court (part of the National Trust) was funded by Arts Council England – she had the opportunity of working with Croome Court's extensive collections. Most recently she was selected as one of 5 commissioned Artists to work with at The Leach Pottery St Ives on the Leach 100, which is part of centenary celebrations looking at the past, the present and the future of studio pottery. In 2021 she will be participating in For the Love of the Master: 25 artists fascinated by Piranesi – a group exhibition celebrating the legacy of this versatile Roman artist in the 21st century. This homage to Piranesi will be held in Dublin Castle & the Casino at Marino, Dublin.

Amy Hughes was a finalist for the Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize in 2014 and is internationally represented by the Cythia Corbett Gallery. She has recently been shortlisted for the Brookfield Properties Craft Award 2023.

Miranda Boulton is a contemporary British painter who lives and works in Cambridge, UK. She studied Art History at Sheffield Hallam University and at Turps Banana Art School in London. In 2021 she won the Jacksons Painting Prize. Notable exhibitions include: Notable exhibitions include: Double Time (two-person exhibition) at Arthouse1, 2019, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2016 & 2019, Creekside Open 2019, ING Discerning Eye 2021 and the Young Masters Autumn Exhibition 2022.

Miranda states: "My paintings are about the passing of time, they are Memento Mori, reminding us of our mortality and the transience of life. I paint flowers, alive, beautiful, decaying, dying, haunting, life affirming, poignant, reassuring. Always at the height of their beauty they fade away. They cover the monumental and the everyday. My grandfather was an artist, he died before I was born, my grandmother kept his studio the same as the day he died. As a child I use to sneak into his mysterious studio and imagine talking with him about his work. These conversations made me want to paint, to recapture something of him and make it present again. For me painting is an ongoing conversation between the past and the present. I am fascinated by Flower Paintings from Art History, having spent a great deal of time looking at paintings by Morandi, Winifred Nicholson, Manet, Rachel Ruysch and Mary Moser to name a few. I absorb their work and follow their brushstrokes as if listening in on a conversation. Memories of their paintings are used as the starting point for my process. I am searching for a space where I have touched on the feel and presence of a painting from the past. There is an essence of the original, an acknowledgement of a time, place and history all in the mix.

Colours slide and slip around the surface, large sweeping gestures made by hand or brush sit next to layers of impasto paint and carefully painted details. Areas of soft powdery spray paint collide with hard built-up oil paint. The canvas is turned to destabilise and shift the composition, giving fresh perspective to the process.

My practise is an ongoing conversation with the past, I explore new forms from old imagery and narratives, linked through expressive layers of colour, gesture and form."

Boulton describes her paintings are Nature Morte of flora. Her work is a response to historical references within this genre. Art historical images are translated through memory into a contemporary pictorial language, linked through expressive colour, gesture and form. Her interest in the passing of time is central to Boulton’s work. Flowers remind us of the fleeting, transient nature of life. She thinks of painting as a time-based medium, layers of paint are like timelines on a tree, each holding memories of brush marks and integral to the finished piece. Each painting is an ongoing conversation between past and present, an exploration of new forms from old imagery and narratives.

Miranda Boulton is represented internationally by Cynthia Corbett Gallery.

Studied at Chelsea College of Art & Design and the Royal College of Art in London, with a term at Atelier National d’Art in Paris. She now teaches in various institutions, and has her own studio weaving workshops. In 2020, Margo was the recipient of the Craft Council’s Collect Open Award for her large scale textiles installation Vexillum at Somerset House, and, in 2021, the bi-annual Turner Medal for ‘Britain’s Greatest Colourist’. She also gave the Turner Lecture, reflecting on her practice. 2022 saw her showing at multiple applied arts and craft fairs including Collect, London Craft Week, and London Art Fair.

Selby is an artist and designer working with colour and geometric form in textiles. She makes handwoven artworks, and oversees the design work of the Margo Selby Studio for mill production and commercial textiles applications – her tenet being ‘Art Into Industry’ – an approach to making art that is akin to that of the ‘Old Masters’ and mistresses, with their expanded studios and public commissions.

Selby uses thread to create abstract geometric artworks that explore repetition and transition, symmetry and asymmetry, the dynamic and the stable. She is interested in the relationship between the body and the machine, hand and industry, craft and technology. The loom, and the disciplined nature of weaving as a practice, provides boundaries and constraints which can be tested. The orderly nature of the craft of weaving is reflected in the developing designs of the artworks. She is satisfied by rhythmic and uniform repetition – where each element of a composition is changed in a methodical progression.

Margo Selby was recently one of the selected artists for the Young Masters Open Call Exhibition 2022/23.

2020 Young Masters Guest Artist Alastair Gordon is a London based artist and tutor and a course leader for the Graduate Residency Scheme at Leith School of Art, Edinburgh. Last year, Alastair was artist in residency for City and Guilds of London Art School followed by a parallel residency with PADA Studios in Lisbon. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Aleph Contemporary, London (2020) and Ahmanson Gallery, Los Angeles (2017). Works feature in various international collections and public museums. He was the inaugural winner of the Shoesmiths painting prize and recently co-recipient of the Dentons Art Prize. His third book, Why Art Matters was published by Inter Varsity Press last year.

Begun in the landscape yet completed in the studio, these new works by Alastair Gordon mark a fresh trajectory for the artist. Gordon is best known for highly illusionistic paintings (rooted in the quodlibet tradition) but here he combines his heightened sense of realism with historical notions of intuitive wildness and British wilderness painting. Gordon makes paintings about paintings; works that oscillate between artifact and artifice. We are presented with landscapes as still lives and sketches as completed works. Certain questions emerge about authenticity, the painting process and how we consider notions of landscape today. The veracity of the object is constantly in doubt yet the wild is ever calling.

In making these new works Gordon travelled to the outer reaches of the British Isles, undertaking a painting pilgrimage from the heights of the Lake District, depths of Caithness peat flows and furthest reaches of the Outer Hebrides. Sitting atop mountain peaks and sinking into peat bogs each work begins in the landscape. As Gordon states, ‘I don’t seek a view but a sense of place’. From here the paintings are developed in the studio to appear as drawing boards and sketchbook work. Oscillating between hyperrealism and intuitive gesture, they both tame and subsume to the wilderness itself.

2021 Focus On The Female Young Masters Award winner Emilie Taylor also showed with the Young Masters Art Prize as a guest artists in 2015 and 2016. She was born in 1980 in Sheffield, where she now lives and works. Her large-scale ceramics use heritage craft processes, particularly traditional slipware, to interpret and represent post-industrial landscapes. Emilie is interested in the pot as container and metaphor for how we seek to contain different communities within society. Beyond the studio she works with the communities represented in her work, and through interdisciplinary projects hopes to apply the alchemical quality of ceramics in a socially engaged context.

COPPER CARBONATE

These pieces use copper carbonate in the line instead of the oxide I used previously. The verdant green connects with the land and I like its more ‘fluid’ quality, it feels like moss or lichen growing and permeating the urban/ concrete landscape.

The copper is a more ‘volatile’ material than the oxide, so it reacts with the other materials in the kiln. This causes changes in the lustre where the edges meet the copper, and gives the aged pattina look, softening the lustre and giving the pieces the feel of an older artefact.

INSPIRATION

These pieces are developments from the time spent working with the National Civil War Centre in Newark and their collections. They are the most recent pieces. I made large pots for the show there using the oxides, then began using the copper on drawings on plates and felt inspired to begin using it on the bigger pieces.

The works focus on the women of the 16-17C, and are a response to how land enclosure and the move to a capitalist society impacted on womens role then and now. They celebrate womens knowledge, connection to the landscape and their activism during the period.

An essay about the research and the work by Sara Read (Author and academic at Loughborough University) is available.

THE SACRAMENTS

The Sacraments takes as it’s starting point the wise or healing women that would have been part of every village or town. (16/17C)

Their medicinal knowledge of plants an herbs would have taken care of the community in every capacity from illness to birth control. Alongside their herb gardens the common land would have been a source of ingredients and inspiration.

The knowledge and power these women possessed (both in the community in general and regarding their perceived ability to control population with birth control), was perceived as a threat to the move to land enclosure and a patriarchal society with a more capitalist focus needing women to stay at home and reproduce the work force.

The rise of the ‘Witch Hunts’ across Europe in this period is seen by some (Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch) as a tool of propaganda used by King and Church to terrorise women and targeted women in these positions, (amongst others).

These plates celebrate these women and their knowledge, and use a contemporary model.

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Emilie has completed residencies in the UK and abroad, and has exhibited at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Ruthin Craft Centre, Gallery Oldham, and the Arts & Crafts House Blackwell. She has a new solo exhibition (Tubthumping) opening on March 8th at the National Civil War Centre. The body of work included in the show takes as a subject the experiences of women in the early modern period and explores the similarities linking them and the experiences of women today. Her work forms part of public and private collections.

Cynthia Corbett Gallery & its not-for-profit art initiative Young Masters Art Prize were invited by the Michelangelo Foundation to feature Emilie Taylor's artwork in their inaugural Homo Faber exhibition in Venice during the Biennale d'Arte in April 2022.