Lowri Davies wins at Eisteddfod
Ceramics by Lowri Davies
Welsh ceramist Lowri Davies has just won £5,000 and a gold medal for Craft and Design at the National Eisteddfod arts festival
The prize was awarded earlier this month at the annual event showcasing the best of contemporary Welsh art. This year 367 different artists submitted work for the various different categories – including architecture, fine art, craft and design – but, in a gratifying boost for the crafts, it was Davies who scooped the top cash prize of £5,000 as well as the prize for her category. She’s obviously doing something the judges like as she won the Young Art Scholarship at the event in 2001 and was chosen to make the Eisteddfod plate last year.
Davies’ entry for this year’s competition was a series of tea sets and vessels, including the Taxidermy series which drew inspiration from a 19th-century group of ceramics by the Aberystwyth-based Hutchings family on display at the National Museum of Wales. In fact, much of Davies’ work is inspired by her Welsh heritage with her pale ceramic jugs and cups decorated with delicate, quirky drawings of local flowers and wildlife. Many reference the ceramics displayed on traditional Welsh dressers and her hand-built pieces, such as the souvenir-style figure dressed in a traditional black hat and red dress, poke fun at Welsh stereotypes.
www.eisteddfod.org.uk
