QEST Scholars shortlisted for prestigious award to be announced at Collect 2024

6th February 2024

QEST is delighted to announce that QEST Winch Design Scholar Angela Fung and her partner Ashley Bedford (together Fung & Bedford) have been shortlisted for The Brookfield Properties Craft Award for their architectural origami, represented by QEST at Collect 2024.

QEST Gosling Foundation Scholar and ceramicist Guy Marshall-Brown, together with glass artist Joshua Kerley, have also been shortlisted for their collaborative work, represented by Bullseye Projects, USA.

Now in its fifth year, the Brookfield Properties Craft Award, created in partnership with the Crafts Council, is considered the leading contemporary craft prizes in the UK, recognising an artist and their gallery who have demonstrated vision, talent, achievement and contributed to craft practice in the UK.

*Fung & Bedford’s architectural origami work*

Worth the equivalent value of more than £65,000, the prize package awarded to the winning artist and their representing gallery includes an awards ceremony, a solo exhibition at a Brookfield Properties’ site in London this summer and the acquisition of their artwork, by Brookfield Properties, which is gifted to the Crafts Council’s Collection.

Angela said it was an honour to be shortlisted amongst the four other finalists.

“We are over the moon to be nominated for this prestigious award, alongside such a high calibre of makers,” she said.

“At Collect, we’re excited to unveil new pieces, including for the first time using our QEST-learned CAD knowledges to create a wall mounted circular piece called “Event Horizon” using two tone Ombré papers, as well as two architectural interventions.”

The winner will be announced during a private ceremony at the fair on 28 February.

Collect – the leading international fair for contemporary craft and design – returns to Somerset House for its 20^th edition from February 29 to March 3. Tickets are available here.

About QEST at Collect

QEST is returning to Collect with a showcase of works by Alumni that explore colour, movement and texture. Many are creating new work for the fair utilising skills learned during their QEST-funded training.

A QEST Scholarship enabled Cara Murphy to study with three master craftspeople – Angus McFadyen, Malcolm Appleby and Jane Short. She focused on engraving techniques to enhance the organic patterns she creates on the surface of her silverware, increasing her knowledge of working with vitreous enamel to highlight her engraved patterns, and allowing her to produce larger scale pieces.

The enamel bowls she is showing at Collect in shades of yellow, blue and green have been created in direct response to this training.

Supported by a QEST Arts Scholars’ Company Scholarship, Sian Evans undertook a year of specialist training in the endangered skills of intaglio and cameo carving with fellow QEST Scholar Charlotte De Syllas. These skills are very rare and few people in the UK have the training or experience to teach them. Sian will be showing new intaglio and cameo pendants created using these skills with QEST at Collect.

We’re also excited that QEST Scholars Carl Fox and Rosanna Bishop have collaborated for the first time to produce a dynamic diptych for QEST at Collect. Rosanna’s designs of a serpent, screen-printed onto leather, have been incorporated into Carl’s signature leather and wood marquetry grids.

*Carl Fox and Rosanna Bishop’s collaborative piece, Mother Dearest.*

‘Mother Dearest’ explores themes of self and queer identity in relation to the family unit and the hidden complexities of the coming out experience. Use of colour, materiality and symbolism connects the viewer to the piece, inviting them to intuitively translate the work to their own experience.

“To work in collaboration with another artist has been such an eye opener. Rosanna’s beautifully printed edition to my leatherwork has added texture, depth and a narrative that would have been lost without it,” Carl said.

Find us at stand W5 in the West Wing.

For the full list of makers exhibiting with QEST, click here.

Elsewhere at Collect

We’re always excited by how many QEST Alumni can be found showing with galleries across the fair. See below a full list.

Bullseye Projects (E16) – Guy Marshall-Brown, Anne Petters, Sophie Southgate
Cavaliero Finn (W17) – Frances Priest
Contemporary Applied Arts (S5) – Carl Fox, Hannah White
Design & Crafts Council Ireland – Cara Murphy, Annemarie O’Sullivan
Design–Nation (E7) – Scott Benefield
FIVE (W14) – Patrick Davison
Goldsmiths’ Fair (E11) – Sian Evans and – as part of their ‘100 brooches by 100 Goldsmiths’ feature – Caitlin Murphy, Kayo Saito, Scott Smith, Wayne Meeten, Yeena Yoon
Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections (S9) – Matthew Warner
London Glassblowing Gallery (E24) – Katherine Huskie
Long & Ryle (E9A) – Su Blackwell
Objects Beautiful (E8) – Elly Glossop, Joanna Manousis
Ruup & Form (W1) – Claudia Clare, Fleur Grenier
Collect Open – Barnaby Ash (Ash & Plumb), Andrea Spencer

Do also be sure to visit the stand of one of our Crafting Tomorrow partners, Intoart (stand S12).

The pioneering visual arts organisation enables people with learning disabilities to be visible, equal, and established artists, designers, and cultural producers.