QEST Scholars to Feature in Future Icons Selects During London Craft Week

During London Craft Week (11-14 May 2023), Future Icons will be exclusively taking over Oxo Tower Wharf’s iconic Bargehouse with its largest exhibition to date and debut of its new show concept, Future Icons Selects, presenting the works of over 70 leading artisans from all over the world. These include QEST Scholars artist blacksmith Bex Simon, shoemaker Deborah Carre, architectural origami artist Angela Fung, silversmith and clockmaker Louise Parry, basket weaver Patrizia Sascor, printed textile designer Rosanna Bishop, furniture maker Sofia Karakatsanis, leather and clay artist Candice Lau and hand embroiderer Susannah Weiland.

Louisa Pacifico, Founder of Future Icons and Future Icons Selects, comments: “Traditionally, there has been no platform for individual makers to apply to showcase within London Craft Week. Future Icons recognised there was a need to offer these talented makers an affordable platform to showcase their creations and be celebrated by the festival.”

Future Icons Selects will curate each room in the 3000sqm venue with a multitude of craft disciplines including basketry, ceramics, furniture and woodworking, jewellery, leather work, metalwork, paper art, and design and textiles. A series of workshops and demonstrations are also scheduled to take place. The showcase will be the largest assembly of craft makers during London Craft Week 2023.

Sofia Karakatsanis will be showing three pieces of furniture, including Parity, which is an exploration of the affinity between the beautiful and the grotesque. Elegant lines and grotesque forms together create contrast and an arresting presence. The wood was carved in a free form way with both power and hand tools then burned for a blackened, textured finish.

Susannah Weiland will be showcasing a new body of work titled Stitching Sunsets, featured six embroidered, abstract works of sunsets in different months of the year. She has hand stitched French knots into leather using a combination of hand embroidery threads, wool and seed beads to create a pointillism effect.

Artsmith Bex Simon will present her geometric metal wall art, exhibited for the first time. The soft back lit layers of metal geometry, glass and perspex are pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle and mounted in a steel frame which resembles a porthole.

Shoemakers Deborah Carré and James Ducker of Carréducker London will be exhibiting new lasted vessels.  The works are a natural extension of the techniques and skills the duo use in shoemaking and leathercraft, applied to organic forms.