Katy West

A culture of quality and the traditional values of craftsmanship characterise Katy West’s work: purposeful ceramic home-ware that balances an economy of design with a desire to draw meaningful narratives from a range of objects, furniture, lighting and tableware. Within each piece a connection between architectural ornament and utilitarian purpose is legible, whether a glazed clay pendant light or a porcelain jar, the formal language of our vernacular built environment is carefully translated onto decidedly functional pieces.

West’s collage of references, fragments often sourced from historically aspirational interiors and architectural follies, align to her commitment to galvanise craft practice with industrial manufacture. Her work draws attention to craft’s artisanal relationship to the industrial revolution: its social, political and economic associations filtered through a concern for quality material and making processes. Borrowing from such traditions, West works with a practicality, modesty, and a commitment to exclusively produce in partnership with local makers and manufacturers to the highest quality possible and with an acceptance of their stylistic lineage.

The resulting pieces do not stand alone as inactive products on a shelf. They are authored objects with agency, profoundly related to where they are made, the status of their material and their practical purpose. Though engaged closely with the design development of kitchenware, fashioned through our social history, they hold within them meaning beyond that normally associated with everyday concern of functionality.