A L I S O N W E S T
C U R R E N T W O R K
K I R S T Y A D A M S
Kirsty Adam’s work is both functional and holds aesthetic meaning, retaining the spontaneity and delicacy intrinsic to making on the potters’ wheel. A Japanese comb tool is used to create and enhance the throwing lines. Her Icelandic collection is the culmination of a research trip to Iceland to express the ‘otherworldliness’ of the landscape.
Kirsty is an award-winning ceramicist currently working from her studio in Newcastle upon Tyne. She originally trained at Brighton Art College and then on the potters’ wheel in Japan. She has developed a personal approach to throwing on the wheel using porcelain clay, to produce unique pieces for the home.
Exhibitions and Events
Being Human
6th March - 19th April 2020
C U R R E N T W O R K
ALCHEMY
A collaboration by Thrown and greenscape, food project, and sustainability hub OmVed Gardens
at OmVed Gardens, 1 Townsend Yard, Highgate, London, N6 5JF
for London Craft Week
11th - 26th May 2024
This May, we are very much looking forward to being back in greenscape, food project, and sustainability hub OmVed Gardens, Highgate, where we are collaborating together once again - this year as part of London Craft Week.
‘Alchemy’, a collaborative exhibition and events programme, will intertwine the transformative elements of craftsmanship and nature, an alchemical union of human creativity and the dynamic, rhythmic forces inherent in the natural world.
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Set amongst the metal-gridded glasshouse and restorative gardens of OmVed Gardens, ‘Alchemy’ brings together works in ceramics, mixed media and print-making, mixed further with events in craft, music, food and nature. This group exhibition centres around process and the artist’s ability to transform material, harness natural reactions and express our own connections to the natural world.
See below for the full artist list and visiting information. The events programme, featuring workshops and talks by many of the exhibition artists, is also now live to view and book on OmVed Gardens' website.
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'Broken Ocean' series by Louis Thompson & Sophie Thomas,as part of 'Trace' at OmVed Gardens, May 2023.
Photography by Will Hearle for OmVed Gardens.
Featured Artists
Kim Colebrook
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Much of Kim Colebrook's work is inspired by her passion for telling the stories of South Wales: 'the people that drove the Industrial Revolution and the natural assets that gave this area the opportunity to lead the world.' In her practice, she aims to incorporate texture and narrative, often creating very simple forms that will carry the intended message.
Workshop: 'Ceramics inspired by geology with Kim Colebrook', Sunday 19th May, 5pm-7.30pm. Tickets: £60 each.
Find out more & book
Tim Copsey
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The Peak District Pennine landscape and its seasons are the backdrop to everything Tim Copsey makes: this is pottery on the border between function and sculpture. Tim finds deep inspiration in Japanese forms and techniques, early experiments in camouflage such as dazzle, Prehistoric ceramic forms and Situationist art. Surfaces are built up over multiple firings, often starting in the wood kiln and ending with lustres.
Talk: 'Tim Copsey: Serving Suggestions',
Wednesday 15th May, 6pm-8.30pm. Tickets: £12 each incl. drink.
Find out more & book
Diane Griffin
Diane Griffin's series 'Ego Sum Terra (I am Earth)' explores the spiritual relationship we humans have with our world: "We rely on nature for our existence, our physical, mental and spiritual well being. Humans and nature, we are essentially as one. This series focuses on the blurring of this boundary. Organic earthy forms combine with ones more ordered and refined. Repeated layers of delicate porcelain sheets merge with and emerge from textured and cracking surfaces blending into one united piece."
Rosalind Hobley
“I love the creativity of the cyanotype process. I like the mistakes, blur, brushstrokes, loss of definition and the translation and reduction of the photographic image.”
Originally trained as a figurative sculptor, Rosalind Hobley works with early photographic and printmaking processes such as Cyanotype and Photogravure.
Workshop: 'Botanical cyanotype course',
Saturday 11th May, 2pm-5pm. Tickets: £60.
Find out more & book
María Ignacia Walker
"What would a forest immortalized in metal look like? These gardens renew the concept of ecology by immortalizing the native vegetation of the forests of southern Chile. They contrast the vegetal contemplation and southern melancholy with the hardness and metallic shine, offering a hypnotic, elegant and alive work."
Maria Ignacia Walker was trained as a jeweler and her interest for the human body is expressed through different artistic disciplines. She approaches art by working with metal, experimenting with material, using her craftmanship to make jewellery, body pieces, objects and installations.
Alice McCabe
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Alice McCabe is a multi-media artist creating floral installations, paintings and performances often with foraged and found materials of an ephemeral nature. Integral to her practice as a floral artist is to create both sustainable and conceptual designs drawing attention via flowers and their meanings to point to other contexts alongside their beauty. In 2022-2023, she returned to art school at the alternative art school, Turps Banana as part of their studio programme.
Workshop: 'Exploring vision and focus through floral collage', Saturday 11th May, 11.30am-1pm. Tickets: £42.
Find out more & book
Victoria Meadows
“I’m fascinated with the diversity of the finishes produced by the change of the seasons. The plant life and wood, the change in the weather, all directing the results."
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Victoria Meadows works from her home studio in the heart of the Cotswolds. Her coil-built vessels are smoke-fired, pit-fired or barrel-fired using combustible, organic materials foraged from around her studio garden and the surrounding countryside - both fueling the firing and infusing an array of beautifully ethereal marks onto the surface of the work.
Faith Mowbray
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Faith Mowbray's work is led by the material qualities of clay, starting with the patterns which form on the surface of my slip bucket: "I’ve tried to find new ways to capture qualities of soft and liquid clay: piping, flinging, daubing, stamping. Those experiments are always the starting point for the things I make."
"I’ve been looking at 18th century decorative porcelain and its qualities of lightness, frivolity, novelty and a thrill in technical innovation. This has led me to intricate 3D surfaces as a way to emphasise the particular qualities of a clay body: the darkness and weight of black stoneware, and the light and lightness of porcelain."
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Esther Palmer
Esther Palmer's work is largely rooted in the interweaving narratives of landscape and deep time: "I see the land we walk on as an archive of memories, mythologies and sociocultural histories. Like countless generations before, I seek to honour the natural rhythms of body, seasons and earth through the making of ceremonial landmarks."
Workshop: 'Crafting the Vessel: Stories of Gathering and Exchange', Wednesday 22nd May, 6pm-8pm. Tickets: £48 each.
Find out more & book
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Jo Pearl
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‘Breathing life into clay and clay into life’ – has become my definition of animation. I have become fascinated with the soil that is at the root of the ceramic discipline, enchanted by the truly overwhelming richness of life beneath our feet."
Jo Pearl is a multi-disciplinary artist working in clay. She brings clay to life, through kinetic sculpture, emotional portraiture, haptic abstract forms and combining clay stop-motion with fired ceramics.
Kids Workshop: 'Clay Critters',
Sunday 12th May, 11am-1pm. Tickets: £18 each.
Find out more & book
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Marek Pitera
Marek Pitera creates stoneware sculpture driven by a purely intuitive design and making process as a candid exploration of the subconscious in form and tone. Most of the pieces include blends of stoneware bodies with local London Clay, hand prospected from the vicinity of his studio which is used to create a physical link between the work and its place of creation and for the particular richness and subtlety of tone this material provides.
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Visiting Information
The glasshouse at OmVed Gardens, Highgate. Image courtesy of OmVed Gardens.
'Alchemy’ opens at OmVed Gardens, 1 Townsend Yard, Highgate, London, N6 5JF on Saturday 11th May and runs until Sunday 26th June 2024.
Opening hours:
Wednesday-Saturday 11am-5pm
Sunday 12pm-5pm
Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays
Free admission, all artwork available to purchase
Alongside these general opening times, there will also be many opportunities to view the exhibition via a range of events including Friday lates with live music, an 'Alchemy' supper club and our artist workshops and talks:
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Exhibition Collection
All of the exhibition will be available to view and purchase via this page at the same time as the exhibition opens, on Saturday 11th May at 11am.