A Natural Selection presents six exceptional makers, each working in a unique material, yet all expressing a kinship with the natural world.

Anthony Bryant from Cornwall, is a master of green woodturning who creates astonishingly delicate, thin-walled vessels from freshly cut timber. From Devon, Vicky Lindo and Bill Brookes share a collaborative ceramics studio and draw their narratives from mythology, folklore, and everyday life to shape richly story-laden forms. Iceland-born ceramicist Björk Haraldsdóttir, now based in Dorset, creates handbuilt stoneware vessels that feature strong geometric and monochrome patterns, deeply rooted in her architectural background and the dramatic Icelandic landscape. Michèle Oberdieck, originally from Canada and now based in London, crafts blown-glass vessels whose fluid, biomorphic shapes and vibrant coloration evoke botanical movement and light. Based in Wales, Philip Eglin’s post-modern aesthetic draws on many sources from popular culture and ceramic history through to high art, and from Gothic Madonnas to Abstract Expressionist painters of the 1950s. He works in both the figurative and the abstract, using his forms as a canvas or vehicle for whatever narrative he is exploring.

Anthony Bryant

Born: 1960

Place of Birth: Ashton, Cornwall

Anthony Bryant is internationally recognised for his unsurpassed work in ‘green’ woodturning. He creates work which stretches the potential of the material to its furthest limits – both in scale and in his unrivalled ability to turn to an absolutely breathtaking thinness. Anthony turns over the space of a few days using hand-made tools, before leaving it to dry as it warps into its eventual shape. Anthony only uses English wood, such as an oak or ash, for their unique aesthetic and materiality.

‘I am not concerned with function in my work. Instead, I prefer to explore the sculptural potential of the vessel at the physical limits of woodturning. My driving aim is to create powerful forms with poise and presence’ – Anthony Bryant.

Selected public collections:
The Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia; The Arts Council of Wales; Liverpool Museum and Art Gallery; The Museum of Ulster; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; The Crafts Council; The Contemporary Art Museum, Honolulu

Vicky Lindo and Bill Brookes

Born: 1980

Vicky Lindo and Bill Brookes are inspired by traditional English slipware pottery and images that Lindo describes as, anything from a funny story heard on the radio, heroic animals, a pattern on an antique rug or a beautiful old tree in the local park.

Vicky Lindo and her partner, Bill Brookes, have been making ceramics since 2013 alongside Lindo’s painting practice. The duo work in their studio in Bideford, Devon. The couple’s work draws on subjects as diverse as classical mythology, history, the natural world, politics, and their everyday lives. Vicky studied Textiles at Herefordshire College of Art & Design and discovered a love of slip casting after she started working at Bideford Museum. They are inspired by traditional English slipware pottery and images that Lindo describes as, anything from a funny story heard on the radio, heroic animals, a pattern on an antique rug or a beautiful old tree in the local park. Lindo designs the original objects in clay before Bill creates the mould and the centrifugal apparatus needed to make each object. Once fired and glazed for the first time, Vicky uses sgraffito to draw her design, before it is overglazed and fired again.

In 2019, Lindo and Brookes won the BCB Award for Dead Dad Book, which took the form of nine large-form vessels which told the moving story of Vicky’s father, who came to Britain as part of the Windrush Generation. The Dead Dad Book explored the themes of migration, racism and identity and was acquired for the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Björk Haraldsdóttir

Born: 1965

Place of Birth: Reykjavík, Iceland

Born in Iceland in 1965, Björk Haraldsdóttir moved to Glasgow in 1987 to study architecture at the Glasgow School of Art, before working as an architect in the UK for around 20 years. Now based in West Dorset, her professional background informs strong geometric form in her ceramics and sculpture. Training to become a ceramicist has happened in a fluid way through part time training and a significant amount of self-teaching and experimentation.

My professional background is in Architecture and my work remains architectural to my eyes. My work is also inspired by the narrative of Icelandic folklore and literature. The titles of the pieces often reflect what is behind the raw clay and careful pattern. It is an important tie to my homeland.

The work is a conversation between the pseudo -perfection of geometric pattern and the tactile inaccuracy of slabs of clay. It is defined by the interaction of the very distinct attributes of form and pattern. The basic premise of ‘draped’ pattern over three-dimensional form is straightforward but the range of expression it allows is vast. Form and pattern are individually and equally important. There is often an ambiguity in the pieces caused by the drape of the pattern over the form, and I often place a rigid, geometric pattern onto an organic form, and vice versa. The ‘grain’ of the pattern vastly alters the perception of a piece and two superficially similar forms will appear unrelated when rendered with different patterns. I tend to design my work in series and I like the work to converse.

I am drawn to monochrome. It could be seen as a reflection of the monochromatic palette of the Icelandic landscape, particularly in winter. I sometimes think my work is reflective of that landscape with black lava peeking out from beneath snow covered planes. However, that is an entirely subconscious outcome. My decorative process simply suits monochrome and the limited palette seems to strike the right balance between form and pattern.

Michèle Oberdieck

Photography by James Champion

Born: 1966

Place of Birth: Saskatoon, Canada

Born in Canada, Michèle Oberdieck has been working with blown glass since her MA at the Royal College of Art in 2016. She previously studied textile design at Glasgow School of Art and ran a successful printed textile practice for several years. This shift of material was the result of a significant commission involving the development of a new technique of fusing printed fabrics between sheets of glass. A moment that sparked curiosity in this new medium, paving the way for a new creative direction. Oberdieck has exhibited internationally and her work was selected for the European Prize for Applied Art Exhibition 2022 in Belgium, as well as the Ireland Glass Biennale 2019, being one of just 50 international artists on show. Most recently, Oberdieck was awarded the QEST (Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust) grant in 2023, allowing continued training in blown and sculpted glass.

Fantasy Plants is a series of imagined blown glass plants intended to question the effects of climate change and cross pollination, based on research into extinct plants, the work of scientists, and the study of how plants are adapting to survive in the future. Working with Kew Garden’s Herbarium and the John Innes Centre, Oberdieck has been able to access unique imagery from Victorian botanical drawings, cellular microscopy and sub cellular imaging techniques; alongside the plants we see every day in the garden and in markets. This research resulted in the creation of a series of abstracted plant forms blown from hot glass. Beginning as gestural sketches idealising what plants might need to survive in the future, each process has edited down details which are blown into glass components and applied hot to a glass core. Through editing and accepting the natural movements of hot glass, these glass botanicals start to take on a life of their own, sometimes resembling other species. They are imagined, other worldly botanicals.

Philip Eglin

Born: 1959

Place of Birth: Gibraltar

Philip Eglin studied at Staffordshire Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, London. He was winner of the prestigious Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts in 1996. The Scottish Gallery has exhibited Eglin’s work since the 1980s. His post-modern aesthetic draws on many sources from popular culture and ceramic history through to high art and from Gothic Madonnas to Abstract Expressionist painters of the 1950s. Frequent use of graffiti elements carry playful references to street culture and his sculptures often incorporate pieces moulded from everyday objects such as coke bottles or throw-away plastic. He works in both the figurative and the abstract, using his forms as a canvas or vehicle for whatever narrative he is exploring. He also creates garnitures or installations of both small scale and larger works.

‘I see myself as continuing a strong ceramic tradition of borrowing ideas, for both form and surface, from examples found in other media. I enjoy being flippant and subversive, making fusions of seemingly disparate historical and contemporary subjects in an attempt to achieve a balance between the high and the lowbrow, the reverent and the irreverent, the sophisticated and the crude.’ – Philip Eglin

His fourth solo show at The Scottish Gallery in August 2009, Popes, Pin ups and Pooches, presented the full, dynamic range of artistic and expressive skill which flows from Eglin’s rich, eclectic and symbolic palette; the familiar iconography of Madonnas and Christs, popes, pin-ups, dogs and of course football. Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art acquired a major piece for their collection from this exhibition.

Public collections include:
Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA; Mint Museum, North Carolina, USA

Philip Eglin was the subject of solo exhibitions Strange Bedfellows, in October 2021 and Unfinished Business in August 2017 that formed part of our Festival exhibition programme.

A Natural Selection

Anthony Bryant

Vicky Lindo and Bill Brookes

Björk Haraldsdóttir

Michèle Oberdieck

Philip Eglin

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