Alice Walton - Shaping the Future

We are pleased to be showing three of The Royal College of Arts' most promising new Ceramics and Glass Masters graduates, alongside work by rising young painter and Falmouth University graduate Will Calver. We have selected them as being amongst the best new talent for 2020 for their exceptional work and uniquely focused practice. 

Alice Walton works with coloured clay throughout its various plastic states, aiming to highlight the meditative process of the material. Her sculptural and abstract forms explore complex and intense surface textures and intend to provoke intrigue. In a world that is increasingly changing minute by minute she attempts to slow down, allowing her to steadily evolve, brick by brick, pin mark by pin mark. Her work is about a consideration of the everyday, taking the time to notice the unseen things in our environment and re-evaluating them.

Her latest ceramic work incorporates her fascination for noticing everyday street objects, passed by in our everyday lives. She investigates how they can transcend into unusual and extraordinary objects, which form a new abstract landscape.

The repetitive nature of mark making mimics the constant review of certain objects on her daily commutes e.g. concrete bollards, brickwork and pipework. As reference, she combines her photographic collages and drawings from memory, bought into the studio to work from. This takes her work away from literal street inspiration and transforms it into an imaginative collection of objects. 

Alice graduated with an MA in Ceramics in 2018.  She has exhibited at the V&A Museum, Tate Modern, Hauser & Wirth and Collect 2020, and she was awarded the Wedgewood Prize at the British Ceramics Biennial.