Jerwood Makers Open 2019

Five new commissions by early-career makers Lucie Gledhill, Abigail Booth and Max Bainbridge (Forest + Found), Mark Corfield-Moore, Bethan Lloyd Worthington and Tana West brought about through the biennial Jerwood Makers Open. Each artist combines a high level of technical skill with imagination and intellectual adventure, constituting a fresh and exciting direction in their work.

Focussing on the work of the two ceramic artists:

Taking the controversy over Sheffield City Council’s felling of street trees and intertwining this with archival, poetic and art historical sources, Bethan Lloyd Worthington is working on a large wall piece made up of distinct ceramic objects, arranged to form one composition. She will use ceramic techniques such as experimental glazes, slipware and dendritic mochaware processes, with a focus on the colour green both in terms of its chemistry in ceramics and its wider social meanings. The piece will also include a risograph pamphlet printed by Hato Press, featuring a new experimental text written by the artist, which draws from and is inspired by the different strands of research underlying her JMO commission. The pamphlet will be given free to visitors in limited numbers.

Tana West works predominantly with ceramic processes, using the language of ceramic materials and object making to connect with social, political and historical contexts. She is creating a ceramic version of a hall of black mirrors, in the mode of a funfair where the glaze surface of the mirrors distorts: ‘for now we see through a glass, darkly’ to have an obscure or imperfect vision of reality. tanawest.co.uk

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