Pig in Red Shoes
Meri Wells and Anna Noel have just been awarded the inaugural Elizabeth Wait Purchase prize for ceramics by Newport Museum and Art Gallery, and their work can be seen at the museum until 16 January
The museum has had a long tradition of putting on varied ceramics shows, but two years ago decided that it needed to make its ceramics programme a little more focussed. Consequently it launched a more rigorous, biennial programme of ceramic exhibitions in 2007 and now, as icing on the exhibition cake, has added this new £3000 purchase prize. The idea is to build up the museum’s permanent collection as well as challenge ceramists to stretch themselves by creating new work especially for the show/award.
This year’s exhibition, Pig in Red Shoes, focuses on figurative ceramics. It’s been curated by potter Melanie Brown who has got together an impressive list of ceramists including Catrin Howell, Claire Curneen, Nicola Theakstone and Gwen Heeney. Newport’s Curator of Art and Design: Robin Hawkins says, ‘Because it’s all about figurative work there are inevitably some more traditional pieces, but we’ve been keen to include work by people like Meri Wells who are pushing the boundaries more – we wanted to include work which was bit more intriguing, as well as showing the outstanding skill of some of these practitioners…It’s quite a witty show, with lots of humour, and I think will tick most boxes.’
www.newport.gov.uk
