The UK Crafts & Design Residency supports an established designer/maker at a key stage in their career. It enables the artist to undertake research, explore new ideas and make significant developments in their practice within the context of Cove Park’s international and cross-disciplinary programme. Previous residents on this programme include Linda Brothwell, Linda Florence, Charlotte Linton, Lina Peterson, Joe Pipal, Celia Pym, James Rigler, Will Shannon, James Thompson and Max Warren.

Alice Walton works with coloured clay throughout its plastic states, aiming to highlight the meditative process of the material. Her sculptural and abstract forms explore complex and intense surface textures and intend to provoke intrigue. In a world that is increasingly changing minute by minute she attempts to slow down, allowing her to steadily evolve, brick by brick, pin mark by pin mark. Her work is about a consideration of the everyday, taking the time to notice the unseen things in our environment and re-evaluating them.

Her latest ceramic work incorporates her fascination for noticing mundane street objects, passed by in our everyday lives. She investigates how they can transcend into unusual and extraordinary objects, which form a new abstract landscape.

The repetitive nature of mark making mimics the constant review of certain objects on her daily commutes e.g. concrete bollards, brickwork and pipework. As reference, she combines her photographic collages and drawings from memory, bought into the studio to work from. This takes her work away from literal street inspiration and transforms it into an imaginative collection of objects.

Alice Walton (born 1987), graduated in 2018 with a Masters in Ceramics from the Royal College of Art. She has exhibited across Europe including artist in residence during the European Ceramic Context in Denmark and graduate resident at the V&A Museum. In 2017 she was awarded the Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Travel Scholarship and in 2018 the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust. She has taught ceramics for the Crafts Council and at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Image: AliceWalton, Mirasi Lock. Photo by Sylvain Deleu.