‘I’m a fan of Studio Furthermore’s foam-like ceramics,’ Kerley says. ‘A lot of my interest in art and design lies in material research and experimentation. I find Silo Studio really interesting: they use industrial materials and processes, but bring them into a craft context. I also admire Jochen Holz’s glass – I like how he blurs the boundaries between the sculptural and the functional. I feel that much contemporary glass doesn’t use colour in a considered way – it is often just psychedelic and a bit mad. I’ve been mixing my own colour palette: this has been a big part of my MA research.’
Recognition is coming swiftly for the early-career maker. After winning 2018’s Bullseye award, he scored a place on Bullseye Project’s stand at 2019’s Collect art fair, and his work was in Bullseye’s group show Emerge/Evolve, touring the US throughout 2019. More recently, Kerley won a year of free studio space in London, thanks to The Tiffany & Co. x Outset Studiomakers Prize. ‘It’s prohibitively expensive to live here and rent a studio, so it’s a real weight off my shoulders,’ he says, ‘and I can carry on investigating London architecture in my work.’