Jerwood Makers Open 2015

About

On 10 July 2015 five exciting new talents in contemporary applied arts will premiere works in a group exhibition to mark the fifth edition of Jerwood Makers Open. Zachary Eastwood-Bloom, Malene Hartmann Rasmussen, Jasleen Kaur, Ian McIntyre and Silo Studio each received awards of £7,500 at the end of 2014 to realise significant new projects, with the resulting works debuting at Jerwood Space in London before touring nationally.

Jerwood Makers Open promotes the significance of making and materials within the visual arts arena, seeking to support exceptional skill and imagination. It looks broadly at how contemporary artists are defining or challenging the boundaries of what has traditionally been described as applied arts. Over the past five years the initiative has awarded commissioning funds totalling £180,000 directly to artists. This has supported 24 major new commissions, offering a rare opportunity for artists to freely develop creative ideas central to their individual practices.

This year’s artists, selected from over 267 UK-wide applicants, all combine a high level of technical skill with imagination and intellectual adventure, and these new works promise to take each practice in a fresh and exciting direction.

The 2015 artists were selected by an independent panel comprising Grant Gibson, Editor of Crafts magazine; Isobel Dennis, Director of New Designers - the UK's most important graduate design exhibition; and Michael Marriott, leading product designer and curator.

In his most ambitious project to date, Zachary Eastwood-Bloom will create a ceramic wall constructed using a number of hand-crafted mesh-like cubes.

Malene Hartmann Rasmussen will stage a theatrical installation, immersing individual ceramic sculptures in a surreal woodland setting.  Combining sculpture and photography, the piece will play with viewer’s perceptions of reality.

Drawing parallels between Indian devotional sculpture and traditional western portrait busts, Jasleen Kaur will create a trio of busts cast in marbled plastic that subvert both the material and subject from the revered to the everyday. 

Ian McIntyre, who is fascinated by craftsmen who work on an industrial scale, will take inspiration from production potter Isaac Button to create a ton of white porcelain tableware, stacked in towering columns. Silo Studio will experiment with new materials and machinery which they have developed themselves, to further manipulate the casting process.