About Weekend Artist Talks

Join us at the BCB festival weekends to meet, ask questions and hear from many of the talented artists exhibiting with us this year. The artist talks will bring energy to the BCB festival weekends and share more in-depth and behind the scenes stories about how it’s been creating work over the past several months, their careers as artists, their greatest inspirations and the artwork they have created especially for BCB 2021. The talks are available to attend in-person or via private live stream.

When

Saturday 25th September 

14:30-15:00 – Connor Coulston, AWARD 2021 Exhibitor.

15:15-15:45 –Jin Eui Kim, AWARD 2021 Exhibitor.

16:00-16:30 – Alice Walton, Fresh Talent Award Winner 2019.

Artists Involved

Connor Coulston

Connor Coulston (B.1992, Oldham, UK) is a ceramicist whose practise is defined by the ongoing conversation between his self-deprecating sense of humour, wild imagination and the materiality of clay. The majority of Coulston’s work is a result of a fascination for the kitsch ceramic ornaments that you would usually find in a charity shop or that have adorned his grandmother’s fireplace. He subverts these often-mundane pieces through a rigorous questioning of the pieces legacy and hidden narrative whilst focusing on personal issues such as depression, queer identity and his Grandmothers love for right-wing politicians. Coulston uses his self-deprecating humour as a tool to create surreal and kitsch sculptures which act as a preface to bring his audience into a false sense of security so his work can reveal its more sinister undertones. Connor graduated from his MA at the Royal College of Art in 2017. Recent achievements included being selected as 1 of 50 artists commissioned from Sky Arts to explore what it means to be British, post-Brexit. Being shortlisted for the John Ruskin and Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramic Prize and more recently winning the prestigious Ingram Prize for his work ‘Sometimes, Connor, it feels like I’m just waiting to die – Depressed Ewer’.  

Connor Coulston website link.

Jin Eui Kim

My work explores how the perception of three-dimensional ceramic forms can be manipulated by the applications of tonal bands or arrangements of blocks of clay. Illusory spatial phenomena can appear and thus significantly influence the actual three-dimensional forms. I work in-between the concepts of illusion and reality and my work attracts viewers by visual phenomena as well as physical confusions appearing on the surface. Restricting or removing data (information) on the surface increases the chance of the viewer’s perception shifting between illusion and reality. Looking with half closed eyes, in the darker light and with distance, brings the illusion to life for me.

Jin Eui Kim website link.

Alice Walton 

Fresh Talent Resident Artist Alice Walton (born 1987) is a British ceramic sculptor whose intriguing labyrinthine forms have attracted international recognition. Alice works with coloured clay throughout its various states, aiming to highlight the meditative process of the material. Her sculptural and abstract forms explore complex surface textures and intend to provoke intrigue. Her work is about a consideration of the everyday, taking the time to notice the unseen things in our environment and re-evaluating them.

Alice Walton website link.

Where

This event is taking place in-person at BCB’s festival hub, The Goods Yards, and online via a private livestream.

Tickets

There are 10 tickets available to attend the talk in-person and 50 tickets for the private Livestream. Please ensure you choose the right ticket by clicking Book Now and checking the name of the ticket reads IN-PERSON or LIVESTREAM.

We’re introducing a sliding scale ticket system for ticketed events at British Ceramics Biennial 2021.

Supported By

The Weekend Artist Talks are proudly run as part of creative business support programme Factory. Factory is a partnership between Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce, Staffordshire University, British Ceramics Biennial and ACAVA. The programme is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund. Follow this link for more information about other opportunities and workshops run through Factory.