ARTICULATE
Collect, the leading international fair for contemporary craft and design, returns to Somerset House from 3 to 5 March 2023 (Previews 1 – 2 March):
www.craftscouncil.org.uk/collect-art-fair
Anne-Laure Cano represented by 155A Gallery Ussade (101), 2022
At a time when contemporary craft has never been more sought after, Collect is an exceptional opportunity to view and buy new, museum-quality artwork from living artists internationally.
With its beautiful Grade I listed architecture; Somerset House provides a stunning backdrop for displaying contemporary craft.
Complementing the physical fair in London, which attracted over 9,100 visitors in 2022, all works will additionally be available to view and buy online via Artsy.net between 1 to 12 March 2023.
Disciplines and materials represented include ceramics, glass, lacquer, furniture, art jewellery, metalwork, textile, and fibre, wood and paper, and pieces embracing non-traditional materials such as resin and plastics — as well as reused, repurposed, recycled materials.
Collect 2023 welcomes several new galleries which will offer a fresh perspective on artistry in making, alongside a dynamic and diverse roster of established gallerists nurturing emerging talent, including:
- BR Gallery (China) is the first contemporary gallery in China entirely focused on metalwork including vessel, exquisite art jewellery, object, and installations, including Yu Zhang whose work aims to highlight dying minority traditions of the Dai culture.
- Siat Gallery (South Korea) is curating for Collect a presentation entitled “Kyeol: Beyond Fine and Rough” with all new artists, introducing some stunning jewellers to the fair.
- Charles Burnand Gallery (England) is bringing three fresh newcomers hot out of the Royal College of Art; Noa Chernichovsky, Inger Heeschen and Binghui Song along with highly acclaimed artist in glass, Fredrik Nielsen, and furniture designer Reynold Rodriguez
Sandy Buchanan, represented by Flow Gallery Eland Console, 2020
The line-up of artists at this year’s event also features strong representation of artists from Africa and African
diaspora including:
- Bisila Noha (Spanish/Equatorial Guinean; ceramics) is showing with Thrown (England) and explores her African roots through material and form; two of her works were acquired by Victoria & Albert Museum at Collect 2022.
- Emefa Cole (Ghanaian; jewellery), who was recently appointed as the inaugural curator of jewellery, diaspora at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and is showing with Goldsmiths’ Fair (UK wide).
- Anthony Amoako-Attah (Ghanaian; glass), who debuted at Collect in 2022 and is represented by Bullseye Projects (USA) is designing a new range of travel bag forms entitled ‘Take Me Home’ in glass made to resemble traditional Kente designs and Adinkra symbols from Ghana.
Poppies: Amy McCavour. Cynthia Corbett Gallery
Southeast based sculptor Jemma Gowland exhibited at Collect Open 2022 to much acclaim, with her installation Lifespan 82.9 being acquired by the Rumi Foundation. Jemma first trained for a BSc in Engineering Product Design, and worked in the fields of industrial design, production, and architectural model making before becoming a teacher of Design and Technology. With experience in making using a broad range of materials, for a wide range of purposes, ceramics has become her abiding interest. Her current work explores the way that girls are constrained from birth to conform to an appearance and code of behaviour, to present a perfect face, and maintain the expectations of others. The disrupted surfaces, or perfect doll masks, describe the vulnerability beneath.
As part of London Craft week, May 9 – 15, at OXO Tower, Jemma will be taking part in a show called Tangible, from the Tangible Project; a group of 8 makers who all took part in Collect Open 2022. Jemma will also be taking part in Southeast Open Studies 2023, hosting and participating in a sculpture trail in a woodland, near Lamberhurst, in a collaborative project called Pathways with the ceramicist and curator Dr Jane Sarre.
Another craft based event happening in the South East until April 2023 is Shoji Hamada: A Japanese Potter in Ditchling at Ditchling Museum of Art & Craft: ]www.ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk
In 1921, young Japanese potter Shoji Hamada (1894−1978) travelled with his friend Bernard Leach to the village of Ditchling in East Sussex. The pair journeyed from St Ives, where they had set up their acclaimed pottery with a traditional Japanese climbing kiln – the first noborigama to be built in the West, but it was the art and craft community in Ditchling that really struck a chord with Hamada.
Shoji Hamada: A Japanese Potter in Ditchling captures a key moment in early 20th-century art and craft – a collaboration and consolidation between East and West, and the emergence of the studio pottery movement. It brings together significant works from 5 public UK collections by Shoji Hamada, Bernard Leach, William Staite Murray, Martin Brothers, O Kenzan VI, Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie and many more eminent figures in both the Mingei and studio pottery movements.
lesley@pureartsgroup.co.uk
Lifespan 82.9 by Jemma Gowland – work acquired by the Rumi Foundation
