Collect 2023

Delighted to be part of Collect 2023, 3 - 5 March (Previews 1 & 2 March) and showcase a very special curation of ten wonderful artists who create multifaceted narratives while also celebrating materiality: Freya Bramble-Carter, Amy Hughes, Crystal Latimer, Margo Selby, Klari Reis, Matt Smith, Emilie Taylor, Elin Hughes, Ryan Barrett and Maria Diletta Rondoni.

Klari Reis uses the tools and techniques of science in her creative process, constantly experimenting with new ways to apply materials and methods. She is driven by curiosity and her desire to explore and document the natural and unnatural with a sense of wonder and joy. Formally trained as an architect, the artist from her base in San Francisco (in proximity to one of the largest concentrations of life science/technology companies in the world) collaborates with local biomedical companies and is inspired by the cutting edge of biological techniques and discoveries.

The unifying theme of Klari Reis’s art is her mastery of a new media plastic, epoxy polymer, and the fine control she brings to its reactions with a variety of dyes and pigments. Her compositions display brightly coloured smears, bumps and blobs atop aluminum and wood panels. A skilled technician with a studio for a laboratory, Reis uses science in the service of her art.

Klari Reis's work has been exhibited worldwide and public collections include Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK; Next World Capital’s offices in San Francisco, Paris, and Brussels; MEG Diagnostic Centre for Autistic Children in Oxford, UK; Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London; the Stanford University Medical Center Hoover Pavilion in California; and Elan Pharmaceuticals, Genentech, Acetelion and Cytokinetics in South San Francisco.

Klari Reis is represented internationally by Cynthia Corbett Gallery.

UK-born Matt Smith is well known for his site-specific work in museums, galleries and historic houses. Using clay, textiles and their associated references, he explores how cultural organisations operate using techniques of institutional critique and artist intervention. He is interested in how history is a constantly selected and refined narrative that presents itself as a fixed and accurate account of the past and how, through taking objects and repurposing them in new situations, this can be brought to light. Of particular interest to him is how museums can be reframed into alternative perspectives.

In June 2020 our long-standing partner Contemporary Art Society has acquired twelve ceramic and tapestry works by artist Matt Smith. This acquisition will become a central focus for the displays at the Hove Museum when it reopens. This exciting project was possible due to the Contemporary Art Society’s Rapid Response Fund in partnership with Frieze London, which is a new initiative supporting artists and museums during the Covid-19 pandemic. The CAS Rapid Response Fund is being used to purchase works by artists to add to collections of museums across the UK – ensuring financial support goes where it is needed most. We are thrilled that Hove Museum will now feature a major installation of Matt Smith's artworks, which is highly illustrative of his style and artistic research. Much of Matt Smith’s work explores and comments on marginalised history and it will form a key inspiration for activity sessions as the museum expands its work with groups with varied critical social needs.

"What museums collect, and what this tells us about what society deems important, is an ongoing fascination to me. Recent events have shown how important objects, and particularly sculpture, are in the national debate about who we are and how we got here. I have worked with the museums in Brighton and Hove many times over the last decade and am delighted that this acquisition leads on from that relationship. I look forward to seeing how the works are interpreted and curated to help the widest possible audience feel welcomed and visible within the museums," – Smith says.

In 2015 / 2016, Matt was Artist in Residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 2009 he received the ARC Award for Craft from Aspex Gallery and was awarded the inaugural Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize in 2014. At Collect 2018, he was awarded "Object of the Show" by Ekow Eshun. For Collect 2020, Cynthia Corbett and Matt Smith co-curated a site-specific installation featuring textiles and black parian works. The curation was extremely well-received, and Matt was awarded the inaugural Brookfield Properties Crafts Council Collection Prize, which allowed the Crafts Council to purchase six artworks for the Council's collection. The V&A Museum's Design and Textiles department also acquired one of Matt's subversive embroideries.

Matt regularly exhibits his work at public collections including Coming Out, Walker Art Gallery 2017, A Place at the Table, Pallant House, 2014; Subversive Design, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, 2013; DIY A Revolution in Handicrafts, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburg, 2010.

Matt Smith is internationally represented by Cynthia Corbett Gallery.

Margo Selby (born 1977, Eastbourne) studied at Chelsea College of Art & Design and the Royal College of Art in London, with a term at Atelier National d’Art in Paris. She now teaches in various institutions, and has her own studio weaving workshops. In 2020, Margo was the recipient of the Craft Council’s Collect Open Award for her large scale textiles installation Vexillum at Somerset House, and, in 2021, the bi-annual Turner Medal for ‘Britain’s Greatest Colourist’. She also gave the Turner Lecture, reflecting on her practice.

Selby is an artist and designer working with colour and geometric form in textiles. She makes handwoven artworks, and oversees the design work of the Margo Selby Studio for mill production and commercial textiles applications – her tenet being ‘Art Into Industry’ – an approach to making art that is akin to that of the ‘Old Masters’ and mistresses, with their expanded studios and public commissions.

Selby uses thread to create abstract geometric artworks that explore repetition and transition, symmetry and asymmetry, the dynamic and the stable. She is interested in the relationship between the body and the machine, hand and industry, craft and technology. The loom, and the disciplined nature of weaving as a practice, provides boundaries and constraints which can be tested. The orderly nature of the craft of weaving is reflected in the developing designs of the artworks. She is satisfied by rhythmic and uniform repetition – where each element of a composition is changed in a methodical progression.

Maria Diletta Rondoni (born 1984, Italy) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia. Maria has partaken in a number of exhibitions including, Flora Danica, Apple House-Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in Skaelskor, Denmark (2021); Matres, International Festival of Ceramics for Women, Ceramics Museum of Deruta, in Perugia (2019); and XI International Exhibition for Ceramic Artists, Third Prize Winner, Museo Muda in Albissola Marina, Savona (2018).

For Rondoni) ceramic works come to life through an anaphoric process of composing different forms that absorbs her in a slow creative flow. She uses few tools, sometimes just the tip of her fingers with a pinch and coil technique. She favours natural clays and loves to create her own palette of pigmented clays, thinking of her work as three-dimensional painting.

Rondoni is inspired by the metamorphosis and permutation of nature, its movements and stages, its strength and fragility, to give voice to its sensual power as the origin of life. Her aim is to create a sort of imaginary, fantastic and corporeal herbarium.

Crystal Latimer was born in Hollywood, California, and grew up in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. In 2010, Crystal completed her BFA Slippery Rock University and received an MA and MFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2013 and 2016, respectively. After graduating, Crystal taught several courses at Penn State University and Indiana University and has lectured at Slippery Rock University and Carlow University.

Crystal's work has been shown extensively in both solo and group exhibitions, including at the Pittsburgh International Airport, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Chautauqua Institution, The Mine Factory, George Washington University, and Union Hall among others. She has shown her work internationally in Hong Kong and London, and participated in a residency at the Joaquin Chaverri Fabrica de Carretas in Sarchi, Costa Rica. Crystal's work has been featured in Create!, Pikchur, Local Arts PGH, Art Maze, Ruminate, and Fresh Paint Magazines. Her work is included in both private and public collections nationally and internationally; including Indiana State University of Pennsylvania, PNC Corporate, the Benter Foundation, and Wyndham Tryp Hotel.

Crystal was shortlisted for the Young Masters Art Prize in 2019.

Carry On Creativity: A Series of Interviews with Young Masters' Artists : Crystal Latimer

British Amy Hughes’s practice is both fuelled by and symbolic of the highly prestigious Porcelain wares produced at the Royal Sèvres Factory in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Hughes’ works reference and pay homage to the originals, but are created with a freer approach, giving them a new lease of life.

After Alhambra pieces take inspiration from the large lustre vases produced during the Nasrid Dynasty (the last Muslim Dynasty in the Iberian peninsula, ruling Granada) in the 14th and 15th centuries which became romantically known as 'Alhambra Vases', and of which only 8 remain in semi-intact existence today. The skill, the legend, the intrigue surrounding these vases captivated and fuelled my fascination to explore a contemporary response to the stunning relics. The forms, the two wing-like handles, the horizontal decorations all reference the originals, the rawness in composition and materiality nodding to their faded beauty. Drawing studies of their intricate surface pattern have been enlarged and explored on the coil and slab built forms creating exciting pattern and shape with a colourful and lively approach.

Physically, the creative worlds of both ceramics and fashion and textiles playfully explore materiality and its expression through their own different mediums but many parallels can be drawn between the two, as demonstrated and discussed here by the artist. The use of texture creates almost fabric like aesthetics on these ceramics, through layers of slip application creating depth akin to a knit or heavy weave, with more exposed or 'faded' areas gauze-like or requiring a darn. Areas of the transparent glaze application vs those unglazed, the smooth vs the rough, a silk vs heavy cotton, playing with light and movement. The wing-like handles and appendages are kindred to pattern cutting but with a rawness of a torn unfinished edge like a fray or a rip.

When making, the Ceramic Artist made multiple drawing studies of intricate Islamic surface patterns before enlarging details and boldly stencilling and tracing areas onto the vase bodies to create exciting and fresh patterns, all of which are applied with confident and lively expression supporting the historic yet present day link between art and fashion.

Amy Hughes works and exhibits internationally, including high profile Collect art fair with the Crafts Council with Cynthia Corbett Gallery and a spell as Artist in Residence at Konstfack School, Stockholm, Sweden. She was nominated to represent the UK in ‘New Talent’ at the European Ceramic Context 2014 as well as being shortlisted for the inaugural Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize 2014 for artists who show an exceptional command of ceramics, alongside an awareness of the heritage of ceramic craft.

In 2015, Hughes was chosen as the first Ceramics and Industry Artist in Residence at the Victoria & Albert Museum working in collaboration with 1882Ltd, as well as being selected as one of eleven artists for AWARD at the British Ceramics Biennial ‘presenting new works exemplifying the energy and vitality of the best of British contemporary ceramics practice.’
In 2018 her first solo show Garniture at Croome Court (part of the National Trust) was funded by Arts Council England – she had the opportunity of working with Croome Court's extensive collections. Most recently she was selected as one of 5 commissioned Artists to work with at The Leach Pottery St Ives on the Leach 100, which is part of centenary celebrations looking at the past, the present and the future of studio pottery. In 2021 she will be participating in For the Love of the Master: 25 artists fascinated by Piranesi – a group exhibition celebrating the legacy of this versatile Roman artist in the 21st century. This homage to Piranesi will be held in Dublin Castle & the Casino at Marino, Dublin.

Amy Hughes made her Art Miami debut with Cynthia Corbett Gallery in 2021 and was represented by Cynthia Corbett Gallery at Collect 2022, London Art Fair 2022 and will be presenting her work at Collect 2023.

Ryan Barrett (born 1986, Suffolk) studied at Goldsmiths University, where he experimented in a variety of mediums from sculpture to paintings, and was especially drawn into the world of textile design. Upon moving to New York in 2011 as his modelling career took off; Ryan worked as a print designer. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to co-found his own print and textile studio, and innovative online selling platform, Vooprint Ltd, in the beginning of 2013.

Barrett first began experimenting with ceramic in 2013, taking over his grandmother’s shed to settle into his first pottery studio. Self-taught, his approach to ceramic is very intuitive and experimental. Antique manmade constructions and sculptural art are the foundation to Barrett’s creative inspiration. He is especially influenced by Modern and Mid-Century abstract art, specifically by the visual language of shapes and monumental forms of British artists Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

From his textile background, Barrett is naturally drawn to surfaces and textures. He constantly experiments with natural glazes and minerals to create tonal mixes and cascading effects. An ever evolving process, much of his work is developed in series and explores variations of forms with soaring organic surface textures.

2016 Young Masters Guest Artist and 2021 Focus On The Female Young Masters Award winner Emilie Taylor was born in 1980 in Sheffield, where she now lives and works. Her large-scale ceramics use heritage craft processes, particularly traditional slipware, to interpret and represent post-industrial landscapes. Emilie is interested in the pot as container and metaphor for how we seek to contain different communities within society. Beyond the studio she works with the communities represented in her work, and through interdisciplinary projects hopes to apply the alchemical quality of ceramics in a socially engaged context.

Emilie has completed residencies in the UK and abroad, and has exhibited at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Ruthin Craft Centre, Gallery Oldham, and the Arts & Crafts House Blackwell. Her most recent solo exhibition (May Day, May Day, May Day) at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum concluded 11th of July 2021. Her work forms part of public and private collections.

Recently Cynthia Corbett Gallery & its not-for-profit art initiative Young Masters Art Prize were invited by the Michelangelo Foundation to feature Emilie Taylor's artwork in their inaugural Homo Faber exhibition in Venice during the Biennale d'Arte in April 2022.

Elin Hughes' sculptures are made through a cyclic process of fracturing and reconstructing the thrown vessel. By taking inspiration from British pottery traditions but removing the stable, functional nature of the pots as domestic objects, Elin draws our attention to the unpredictable material qualities of clay. Her glazes and forms reference back to Western traditions in the twentieth century including Bernard Leach’s fusion of Eastern and European aesthetics and the macho, destructive nature of works by American artists like Peter Voulkos. Her work raises questions about the importance of skill and the role of the potter in today’s society through combining throwing with sloppy craft’s disregard for rules.

Elin graduated with a BA in Ceramics from Cardiff School of Art and Design in 2019 and was a recipient of the Potclays Award for innovations in clay. She was a student demonstrator at the 2019 International Ceramics Festival in Aberystwyth and has exhibited in both the UK and Sweden. Elin has recently displayed work at the Jane Phillips Award Graduate Showcase at the Mission Gallery, Swansea and the 25th Art in Clay at Hatfield House. She lives and works in Cardiff.