Making waves: our pick of this year's fresh craft graduates

2 August 2023

Curator Héloïse Parke gives us her rundown of this year’s top graduate makers

2 August 2023

After the blood, sweat and tears of delivering their final projects, graduates across the UK are downing tools and heading into a summer of celebration. Héloïse Parke, curator and head of contemporary crafts at City Lit, noticed glass was a popular medium this year, and that many of the works carried personal themes. Here are her favourites.

Unravel by Sophie Southgate

Sophie Southgate
MA Ceramics and Glass
Royal College of Art

Southgate transitioned from an undergraduate degree in ceramics to a masters in glass at the RCA, successfully showing how the casting process can be used to give her new medium a mischievous lightness. Colour play is the theme in this latest body of work – twisting geometric forms moulded in Bullseye Glass (glass for kilnforming). Despite the jelly-like appearance of the final pieces, they are inflexible and solid.

Pointing Finger Platter by Nandini Chandavarkar. Photo: Evan Jones
Your Perfect Tits by Nandini Chandavarkar. Photo: Evan Jones

Nandini Chandavarkar
MA Ceramics
Cardiff Metropolitan University

Chandavarkar’s ceramic collection confronts unsolicited comments made about her body as she was growing up. Her collection takes the perceived ‘faults’ and converts them into a symbol of power. The objects are formed in a terracotta clay, which matches the artist’s skin tone, and given further layers of meaning through the application of tin glaze. This combination of materials marry elements of her Indian heritage with those of the British colonisation of her homeland through industry.

Alice Biolo
BA Jewellery and Silversmithing
The Glasgow School of Art

Our hidden traumas were the inspiration behind Biolo’s Under the Skin. The collection of hollow formed brooches show both the fragility of the human state and a spiky, confrontational aesthetic. A juxtaposition of thorny and smooth faces leaves it up to the wearer to decide what they show: maintain a facade and show only the socially acceptable and attractive side of the brooch, or reveal another face where the truth lies.

Terra Brasilis by Claudia Barreira. Photo: Sylvain Deleu

Claudia Barreira
BA Ceramics
University of Hertfordshire

Unglazed earthenware pots made from Brazilian, British and French clay make up Barreira’s debut collection. The vessels are formed by hand before adding a decorative surface that evokes elements of nature. To achieve organic texture and form, individual fragments of bark and foliage are torn, pinched and then overlayed painstakingly to the surface. Applied in a wave-like rhythmical pattern the pieces echo the predictability of nature as well its transience.

Wood and Wool by Vera Bergshoeff
Wood and Wool by Vera Bergshoeff

Vera Bergshoeff
BA Textile Design
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design

Secret pockets knitted into Bergshoeff’s work give soft, pliable materials some formal structure. She knits exclusively on a machine, acid-dying yarns to achieve her desired palette. Furthering the potential of her work for use in interiors, she uses cylindrical and zig-zag forms. She also hides wooden dowels, and square and rectangular parts within the fabric to elevate a typically two-dimensional medium into three.

Erica Earle-Robertson
BA Jewellery and Silversmithing
Edinburgh College of Art

In a nod to her Zimbabwean heritage, Robertson uses artisan weaving techniques to create sculptures imbued with the stories of their cultural provenance. Logwood, indigo, madder and turmeric roots are used to dye sisal, baobab and paper yarn. These raw materials create a rich depth of colour that envelops the natural form.

Stacking Vessels by Machi de Waard

Machi de Waard
MA Jewellery and Metal
Royal College of Art

A geometric visual language is at play in de Waard’s collection of stacking vessels. Crafted from a new alloy of recycled Argentium silver, the collection has a formal appearance but functions playfully. Child vessels hide within mothers, discreet hinges enable unexpected openings, and nods to tradition slowly reveal themselves. The six pieces are formed from custom made dies and manufactured on a hydraulic press, before being plated and polished.

Orange Ludic Vase by Nuala Torp
Green Ludic Vase by Nuala Torp

Nuala Torp
BA Product Design and Craft
Manchester College of Art

Experiments with compressed air led to the squiggly, coily, unpredictable bases of Torp’s Ludic collection. Coupled with mouthblown glass and topped with a decorative flourish, the kitsch pieces feel befitting of a retro dinner party. Collectively, they convey Torp’s ambition to develop a playful language that brings to mind a free-spirited childhood.

Will Barrett
BA Jewellery Design
Hereford College of Art

Barrett’s Elysium series explores the capability of CAD software in rapid making. In designing, printing and casting his jewellery, he ensures a precision in production that is absolute. The result is a collection of refined designs which equalise form and space, reveal glimpses of skin, and are highly polished and plated in 18k gold.

Fragments and Remnants by Naima Omar Khan

Naima Omar Khan
BA Ceramics
Central Saint Martins

Both a display of handmade terracotta floor tiles and a performance, Fragments and Remnants is symbolic of Khan’s upbringing in apartheid South Africa. Terracotta tiles are meditatively formed from fragments before being assembled in a grid formation. Coloured slips are applied by hand and foot, layering heritage, history and a cultural aesthetic onto a series of representative objects.

Final project by Beth Colledge. Photo: Nigel Essex

Beth Colledge
BA Design Crafts
De Montfort University

Beth Colledge creates gravity-defying glass balls that hover beneath brass rods, balancing on the finest lip of mouth-blown forms. The addition of metal powders creates a surface texture in opposition to the high gloss elements. With some glued in place and some simply balanced, the pieces are interchangeable and allow for various assemblages to be made.

What I Say Back to the World by Tom Fewings
This Pot is My Dad by Tom Fewings

Tom Fewings
BA 3D Design and Craft
University of Brighton

Fewing’s collection captures the life of a loved one, creating something to remember them long after they’re gone. A range of techniques – slip decoration, saggar firing and glazing with iron spangles – are used on stoneware pots and plates which come together to create a personal story. Larger vessels are made with personal belongings and DNA burnt into the surface, ensuring the physical object is both literally and aesthetically representative of their life.

Heather Blake
MA Ceramics, Furniture, Jewellery
Central Saint Martins

Marine Alchemy is a collection of oversized bracelets made from leftover fish skin, created by adapting techniques traditionally used in shoemaking. Strips of sea bream, salmon and sea bass are tanned using food waste and woven together to make a leather-like material. The material’s elasticity is exploited to make bulbous rotund forms with material origins that are highlighted through surface detail.

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