With London Craft Week

After 2023’s hugely successful London Craft Week exhibition ‘Quilts: A Material Culture’, for LCW24 The Batsford Gallery presents a survey of contemporary fine art in clay. Ceramics, as quilting, has long been considered a traditional craft-form, characterised by the domestic and the feminine. The four artist-makers featured keep one eye on this heritage, recording biology, experience, history and memory in unconventional sculpture that transcends utilitarian tradition.

About Anouska Samms

Anouska Samms’ practice draws on matrilineal memory, women’s bodies in relationship to domesticity, and the intersection between design and fine art. She produces distinct ceramic sculptures, tapestries and moving image work. Human hair is her primary medium, sourced from strangers and family. Typically, these textiles are combined with a red textured clay body, as the impression of Samms’ fingers are imprinted on the surface.

About Abid Javed

Abid Javed is a ceramic sculptor and designer who creates collectible ‘molecular objects’. The studio practice takes an abstract/surrealist approach to create a sculptural landscape inspired by biology and biological narratives. With a background in Molecular Biology, his work brings this unseen world to the forefront.

About Susie Dalton

Susie Rose Dalton is an Irish artist and ceramicist, living and working in Dundee, Scotland. Her work seeks to materialise memory and human experience in sculptural form. In 2021 she received a Wasps Award for ceramic work, and has exhibited in a number of solo and group exhibitions, including the Summer Exhibition in the Royal Academy of Art and Architecture in 2022.

About Tessa Silva

Tessa Silva is a British-Brazilian visual artist and designer, with an interest in the impact of materials on society and what they can reveal anthropologically. Her focal body of work, titled ‘Feminised Protein’, is a study into the use of milk proteins as a material for the handcrafted production of fine objects. Tessa’s research and exploration prompts the inspection of our material culture, using craft as a tool to explore the relationship between humans and animals. Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, and Madrid’s cultural centre at Palacio de Cibeles.