Ceramic artists Isobelle Hayes and Carlie Smith exhibit work alongside cast concrete artist Sophie Attridge and multidisciplinary artist Gráinne Williams.

All four makers are inspired by aspects of their own environments, from the Brutalist architecture of 1950s social housing, to digging and processing wild clay from their land. Each award winner has worked with curator Michelle Keeling to develop an exhibition that blends unique narratives with innovative approaches to their chosen themes and materials.

Carlie Smith is a maker exploring the contemporary nature of ceramics. Carlie will be showing two bodies of work in this exhibition. Pavement Series: South Manchester is inspired by the untameable essence of nature in the urban environment of Manchester and Pavement Series: Skælskør interacts directly with the rural location of Skælskør, reflecting the well-maintained condition of the pavements.

Sophie Attridge will be showing her body of work Connect - a collection of cast concrete tiles, based around the combination of harsh forms, materials and textures recognised within brutalism.

Specifically responding to UK architecture from the social housing crisis in the 1950s, Sophie's work explores brutalism as not only an exterior form but also by welcoming it into interior spaces.

Isobelle Hayes is a natural ceramicist whose work is driven by a need for change. For her collection of wild clay vessels, she returned to where she grew up to explore her relationship with the natural world. Isobelle works with traditional techniques and processes, exclusively using materials found within the land's boundaries to create ceramic vessels.

Gráinne Williams’ Roots Series is a collection of decorative tools which reference how traditional food and craft practices can connect us to our cultural and ancestral heritage. The collection utilises the conventional forms of garden tools, established in their function to nurture and cultivate the land for food, which are then shaped, transitioning the functional into the decorative.

The artists are all recipients of the Creative Industries Trafford Development Award - an annual prize that gives exhibition opportunities and mentoring support to contemporary artists graduating from the School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Michelle Keeling, curator for the exhibition says: ‘It has been a pleasure to work with the four graduates to bring the exhibition together. They all have interesting narratives behind their work, and already have strong, individual aesthetics as makers. All four stood out for us during selections for the Development Award, and it will be exciting to see where they go from here.”

The Surroundings exhibition runs from Saturday 01 April to Saturday 24 June in the Lauriston Gallery at Waterside and is free entry. Open Monday – Saturday 10:00 – 17:00.

There will be a launch of the exhibition on Thursday 30 March from 6-7.30pm. This is a free drop-in event.

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