ARC award for Matt Smith
Christ Almighty!, Matt Smith, white earthernware, underglaze colours and decals, 52cm high.
Ceramist Matt Smith has won the ARC Award for designer makers to help develop a new body of work leading up to an exhibition in 2010
ARC is a publicly funded arts organisation that supports designers and artists in the South East through its resource centre the Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth. Its annual award gives a designer and an artist a cash prize, a 12-month mentoring programme and a solo exhibition at the end of the scheme. ‘The cash prize comes with no strings attached which is a novelty,’ says Smith, ‘and I have already started talking to (fine artist and ARC coordinator) Jonathan Parsons, my mentor. It’s been really exciting to get a fine art take on my work.’
Smith makes small-scale ceramic figures, which from a distance seem very traditional but on closer inspection often prove to be subversive, witty and occasionally shocking. He is particularly interested in marrying subjects relating to minority groups – such as the gay community in his hometown of Brighton – to what he sees as the conventional medium of ceramics. He plans to spend the next twelve months scaling up these pieces using slipcast milk churns as a vehicle for the surface decoration: ‘I want to give the actual vessel form a bit more of a shout as well as taking the scale of the imagery up’, he says. The results will go on at Aspex this time next year.
www.mattjsmith.com
www.aspex.org.uk
