2021 marks the 75th year of Malcolm Appleby, the world class master engraver, silversmith and jeweller. Malcolm has brought together several silversmiths, artists and fellow collaborators to mark his birthday year and celebrate the joy of creativity. Malcolm Appleby & Friends includes work from: Ndidi Ekubia, Miriam Hanid, Dorothy Hogg, Michael Lloyd, Angus McFadyen, Theresa Nguyen, Jane Short, Max Warren and Yusuke Yamamoto.
In part I we will be celebrating the work of Michael Lloyd, Angus McFadyen and Miriam Hanid. Enjoy our short handling film below.
Michael Lloyd
Born in 1950, Michael Lloyd studied at Birmingham and the Royal Colleges of Art. Since the late 1980s he has lived and worked in South West Scotland. Michael describes himself as a compulsive maker. Certainly, his beautiful, chased silver and gold vessels illustrate a profound understanding of both material and techniques. Inspired by the natural world, his work becomes, in his own words ‘an act of homage both to our landscape and to our increasingly fragile sense of creativity.’ His commissions include work for York Minster and Lichfield Cathedral.
Angus McFadyen
Angus McFadyen trained in 3-Dimensional Design at Manchester Polytechnic, before completing a PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University. Now based in Derbyshire, he has since become a member of Contemporary British Silversmiths and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. He is the current Chair of the Hand Engravers Association, where he teaches on the short course programme.
Angus taught himself to engrave through trial and error, carefully translating designs from his sketches onto silver forms. McFadyen’s Fern Vase, commissioned by the Goldsmiths’ Company, is one of the first items he made using fine (99.9%) silver, which, due to its softness, is easier to raise. The motif for McFadyen’s Honeysuckle vase is inspired by a wallpaper pattern by British Arts and Crafts designer Lewis Foreman Day (1845 – 1910). Flowers engraved in low relief are set against a background pattern of slightly elongated dots cut at right angles to one another, which allows light to reflect from different decorative elements with each turn and from every angle.
Miriam Hanid
After studying 3 Dimensional design at Farnham University of Creative Arts, Miriam undertook a Postgraduate training course for silversmiths at Bishopsland Educational Trust (2008) where she developed specialist chasing and forming techniques. Having also spent a week in Malcolm Appleby’s workshop she began to incorporate the technique of hand engraving into her work, which allowed her to bring depth and intricate detail into the surface of the silver. Miriam is greatly inspired by the essence of movement in water. She believes water is synonymous with nature and human beings in all its physical and metaphorical representations and finds silver the perfect medium through which to express her ideas. Through techniques such as chasing, repoussé and engraving, she represents the way water shapes the landscape, leaving an impression by carving and removing material.
Miriam Hanid, 2015In water there is an endless range of forms and patterns, each with its own unique and intricate beauty, never repeating, giving me an infinite visual language with which to express my ideas.
Click here to view the selection of events The Gallery is hosting throughout August 2021.
Part II is available to read here.
