"Art helps us access and express parts of ourselves that are often unavailable to other forms of human interaction. It flies below the radar, delivering nourishment for our soul and returning with stories from the unconscious." So said Grayson Perry, one of Britain’s leading proponents of the power and poignancy of craft, whose subversive tapestry and ceramic works reframe social history and politics. Never has this dialogue been richer than within the craft space. Perry is one of the trailblazing creatives and British treasures who, alongside ceramic artists Edmund de Waal and Magdalene Odundo, have seamlessly oscillated between the art and craft worlds, bringing the latter to the global stage.
But fine art and craft haven’t always been happy bedfellows. Craft was stuck on the sidelines, outside the red rope of the art world until recent years. Our love for craft grew during Covid lockdowns, which saw many of us take up a new skill. In a broken world, suddenly the idea of ‘making’ felt more poignant and the value of human creativity was rebalanced.
We saw a renaissance of the Japanese art of kintsugi — in which broken objects, such as pottery, are literally joined with gold. It was emblematic of how craft can be used to heal the fractures of everyday life and address much wider world issues.
As people have reconnected with the joys of making, craft has become cool to collect. British museums and galleries are taking note, recognising the power of making traditions and everyday materials to tell emotive stories and bind communities together.
Over in the rolling hills of Wiltshire, Messums West boldly created an entire ceramics season devoted to artists who are pushing the boundaries of the medium. The centrepiece of its recent and beautifully tactile Of the Earth exhibition was Pakistan-born, Lancashire-raised artist Halima Cassell’s Virtues of Unity, an installation of hand-carved geometric clay vessels exploring commonalities of humanity. The gallery has also opened Messums Studio in a bid to nurture local talents working in ceramics and “acknowledge the important role that art plays within a community,” as its Director Johnny Messum puts it.
In London, the grand Two Temple Place has devoted a show (The Glass Heart) to artists reinventing the medium of glass, and blue-chip galleries such as Alison Jacques and Lisson have hosted solo shows of textile and ceramic artists. New fairs have entered the fray, including Eye of the Collector in London, founded by former CEO of Masterpiece, Nazy Vassegh, whose innovative approach sees her mix art, sculpture and craft for discerning collectors in its annual future-focused concept.
It’s heartening to see the increasing value given to craft by global institutions, all keen to explore its hidden languages and ability to connect people. This June, the Serpentine Galleries in Hyde Park hosted Suspended States, the first solo institutional exhibition in London for 20 years for the much-loved, British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare RA, featuring his sculptures, quilts and woodcuts. He has long used fabrics – specifically Dutch wax cloth, a material deeply connected to the African continent and its diaspora yet manufactured in the Netherlands – as a vehicle to rewrite colonial wrongs.
While we may not always appreciate it, textiles are the backdrop to our everyday lives – we wrap our bodies in them and drape our homes in them. Our familiarity with textiles and their connection to cultural traditions and labour systems makes them a potent medium for artists – one they are wielding with increasing intensity.
The Barbican’s recent exhibition Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is a case in point. It showed how textiles have been used as tools for resistance by British and international artists from the 1960s to today, who have harnessed the subversive potential of fabrics – traditionally associated with femininity – to raise questions about power and gender structures and how they are upheld. “Textiles unpack, question, unspool, unravel and therefore reimagine the world around us,” says the Barbican curatorial team in the show guide. In contemporary artists’ hands, the humble thread packs a punch.
Other, lesser recognised – or endangered – crafts are getting a boost. Ochre Design Company, for example, is working with cricket bat makers to craft its elegant oak wood Drifter pendant lights, while Bonfield Block Printers in Dorset specialises in intricate block prints across garments and soft furnishings that explore the myths and stories of country lore. It has a global cult following, spurred on by a showcase at Hauser & Wirth’s Make gallery, a Georgian townhouse in Bruton, Somerset, dedicated to contemporary craft.
Craft has also cast off its fusty image to move with the times. Contemporary artists are bringing fresh finesse to once-crude digital printing, while still embracing risk and the beauty of imperfection – inherent and undeniable parts of the craft process. Gareth Neal creates striking, undulating vessels 3D-printed in sand, shown by Sarah Myerscough Gallery at fairs around the world, including Salon Art + Design in New York and PAD London.
Smart technology can help craftspeople eliminate waste in their work – vital when material scarcity is becoming a looming reality. Makers are also helping us fall in love with ‘waste’ that would otherwise be destined for the skip. Discarded neon baling twine becomes a thing of beauty in the hands of Darcey Fleming, who crafts it into flowing, sculptural chairs and dresses at the Sarabande Foundation studio.
Many artists are literally collaborating with nature in their work to boost their eco credentials. Artist-metalsmith Adi Toch eschews toxic patination techniques, instead burying her vessels underground and letting the organic life beneath the soil leave its mark on them. Meanwhile, Zena Holloway is making the case for biodesign by growing her vessels, sculptures and dresses from grass roots.
All this momentum in the craft world comes against a bleak backdrop of cuts in arts funding and education in the UK. In 2021, former Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced he was cutting higher education funding for arts courses by 50 per cent, and, last July, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took aim at what he deemed “low-value” degree courses. Thankfully, organisations and charities such as the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust and the Crafts Council are rising to the challenge, helping to secure the future of Britain’s making scene through sponsorship, scholarships, exhibitions and programming for the craft curious.
Lead Image Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 13 Feb – 26 May 2024. Photo: Jemima Yong / Barbican Art Gallery
