Alice Walton British, b. 1987

Alice Walton (born 1987) is a British ceramics artist whose intriguing labyrinthine forms have attracted international recognition. With a forensic eye, Walton produces highly complex and multi-layered objects infused with a rich tonal blending technique. Despite their intense, textured surfaces and serpentine glazes, Walton's work is also recognised for its calming qualities. It's this tension between this Suffolk- born artist's meditative colours and kinetic surface techniques that make each of her objects so compelling.

 

Walton crafts individual components from clay to create abstract scenes. Through a technique of repetitive and ritualistic mark-making, in turn, her work mimics the constant review of familiar objects we see on our daily commutes. Walton's references, sometimes mundane and nostalgic, form a collage of photography and drawing memories and backbone to her work. Grounded by this research, her work pivots away from the literal into the imaginary and abstract.

 

Walton's desire to stave off our riddled digital reality is remedied through a process of intensely tactile moulding techniques. Her work creates a time capsule of discovery for the viewer to be drawn in by intricately detailed markings that feel deliberately contemplative.

 

Walton's one-off abstract have exhibited worldwide including at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Modern, Make Hauser & Wirth, Officine Saffi, Collect 2020 and she was awarded the Wedgwood Prize at the British Ceramics Biennial in 2019.

 

Further, she has been an artist in residence during the European Ceramic Context in Denmark, artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum and summer resident in Cove Park, Scotland. In 2017, Walton was awarded the Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Travel Scholarship and in 2018 was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust.

 

Walton believes the creative journey ultimately becomes part of the technique, a philosophy that first emerged during her academic studies. Walton is a Postgraduate (MA) of Ceramics from the Royal College of Art in 2018 and also completed an Undergraduate BA (Hons) Degree from the University of Brighton in which she was awarded a Distinction in Wood, Metal, Ceramics and Plastics.