2019–20
Step Change Fellows
Joy (2019)
Emily Hett
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Installation
Photo: Samuel Smith
Emily Hett
Loughborough University
I create joyful artworks inspired by nature to exhilarate and uplift the viewer through vibrant colours, intricate pattern and playful compositions. My works, both sculptural and functional, range across various mediums including painting, collage, ceramics and fabric.
I question why certain objects instinctively arouse positive feelings and how we can cultivate this emotion through art. My practice explores how tangible objects can be engineered with particular aesthetics to create joy.
Led by a process of improvisation, studies of microscopic imagery, seeds, coral and flora inform the foundations of shapes for the development of pattern. A playful fusion of colour and composition creates comfortingly familiar but indefinable forms.
2020 (2020)
Hannah Short
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Photo: Hannah Short
Hannah Short
Cardiff School of Art & Design
I find inspiration in a variety of small moments or subjects that I become obsessed with and use acrylic paint to explore. I share the heightened yet calm world I want to exist in, full of beauty, exaggerated colours and details. I prefer to work in acrylic because of its quick drying time and synthetic quality. I like to create less obvious narratives within my work by using colour to create atmosphere or to represent different meanings.
My work is a mixture of studies and imaginative creations or the two combined, an investigation into my understanding and experiences of the world. I see painting as a never-ending learning adventure, an opportunity to zoom in and explore the overlooked everyday details of the world around me, freezing them in time and giving them an importance that they did not have previously. I want my paintings to intrigue people and be open to interpretation. Recently I have been inspired by my own domestic space and what the objects contained within this can reveal about me as though they are clues to my personality.
I was shortlisted for The Contemporary Young Artist Award (2020) and for The Graduate Art Prize (2019).
Cinder (2019)
Bethany Costerd
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Photo: Bethany Costerd
Bethany Costerd
Manchester Metropolitan University
My work draws parallels between ancient ruins and simple children’s toys. My favourite ruin sites are rich with crumbling columns and scattered fragments; I want to play with them, arrange them and make my own structures. By interacting with stackable or rearrangeable toys we can act on these impulses; to build structures, and like ruins, to tear them down.
I explore this openness and structural possibility through work which often appears architectural or geometric, upon which I apply various dry glazes and oxides to evoke an aged and weathered patina. More recently I have been staining my rough sculptural clay to create works which appear more like rock than clay. The resulting pastel palette is also reminiscent of both the faded friezes of the ancient world, and those shades I recall from my childhood.
Vessels (2021)
Laura Plant
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Photo: Laura Plant
Laura Plant
Staffordshire University
Making in my hometown of Stoke-on-Trent, I draw from the creative heritage and ambition of the pioneering potters who made the city famous. My vessels expose the unique qualities of the ceramic surface through exploration of clay bodies, glaze and making techniques. Each clay and process bring a different character to the work and I love how the different surface qualities sit together. Through a considered design process, my love of shape evolves into sculptural pieces that create striking ceramic landscapes.
The fellowship allowed me time for self-reflection, I connected to why I make and began to find my voice as an artist. I created a collection of sculptural vessels, a personal reflection on how my life changed due to Covid-19, explored through form and glaze. The collection was exhibited at The Byre Gallery in Cornwall and the Staffordshire University Degree Show. Making this collection allowed me to develop my skills, particularly in mould making and developing new glazes. I also began pursuing new ways of working, using throwing and hand painting as a more immediate way of visualising my ideas. The fellowship started many threads of investigation and I am excited to continue exploring where they take me.
Twisted Vase (2020)
Ana Katricenko
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Photo: Ana Katricenko
Ana Katricenko
Liverpool Hope University
Many of the finished ceramic pieces that I make usually take a long journey from creating designs digitally, following with 3D printing or laser cutting them, then making plaster moulds from these models and finally ending with slip casts.
The nature of my works is about exploration of organic shapes inspired by flowing lines. My aim is to find new, unusual forms and successful combinations by layering one sculpture on top of the other. I also join functional and sculptural pieces together to get some unique pieces, like my slip cast sculptures that can be used as vases. For me, it is an exciting process of experimentation and research that always leads to unpredicted results.