Silver Maker at CAA
Drift wood spoons, Grant McCaig
An exhibition looking at work by young contemporary silversmiths is on show at London’s Contemporary Applied Arts until 20 June
Silver Maker showcases work by seven emerging makers who have been selected by visiting curator Amanda Game. Game, who was given carte blanche by the CAA management, had recently put together Raising the Bar, an exhibition looking at silver by an older generation of makers, several of whom were teachers. So this time around she decided to look at the opposite end of the professional spectrum. ‘It made me want to look at the results of this teaching – at what was coming out of the colleges – and as I began to look, I was quite surprised to see that there was a lot of activity from this younger generation.’
Game believes that seven makers she’s chosen – Max Warren, Drummond Masterton, Sarah Denny, Peter Musson, Grant McCaig, Chien-Wei Chang and Tithi Kutchamuch -– all stand out from the crowd because of their courage and individuality. Courage because silver is not an obvious commercial winner – it’s expensive to make and consequently difficult to sell – and nor is it an easy material to work, requiring technical skill as well as an imaginative approach. ‘These makers have already, in my view, developed their own voice, even though some of them are still very young, and the things they are doing make one pause for thought’, she says.
www.caa.org.uk
