AMATA BENEDICT

Amata Benedict is an artistic partnership who create art and one-off interiors objects. Their artworks integrate the space between artefact, functional object and a work of art. They work with pre-existing things, such as fragments of used textiles, deconstructed and reconfigured furniture as well as metal and hand building with clay, to create playful works inspired by ancient art and everyday contemporary household objects.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"A combination of craft, folk and playfulness make these pieces really beautiful and collectable. I like the idea of the partnership (kind of guild like) but one that puts their artistic vision to a wide array of objects and inspirations." - Jonathan Brook

"Their artistic approach centres on creating pieces with layered narratives by deconstructing and reassembling found objects and materials - working with textiles, wood and metals even repurposing from projects past. The original form is recognisable, but altered, sometimes humorous, surreal, but always beautiful."- Russell Loughlan

BEK ASHTON

Bek Ashton creates enigmatic images playing between self-referential fact and fiction. Her work, characterised by a dark tone with humorous edges, celebrates our dense, overlapping, and often uncanny existence. The unabashed use of colour and texture invite the viewer to sink into the amounted layers that persistent working and reworking provide. She uses a mixture of mediums to accomplish this; bridging the gap between the crudeness of humanities irreverence and yet its unwavering elicit beauty. 

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Bek’s works are wonderfully moody and immersive. I love her use of colour and mark making, it’s so unique." - Georgia Spray

ELIZABETH LOVEDAY

Since graduating in Illustration, Elizabeth Loveday has forged a unique career path, with her work positioned between craft and fine art. Inspired by the work of her ancestors, she uses alternative materials to creative narrative works, gravitating towards textile as a medium. She views her work as a visual outlet for dialogues that exist within herself and wider society. Handling humanistic themes, characters are loosely gleaned from Cornish folk tales and her own life to tell stories that exist within her community as it is now.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I’m really drawn to her work, the way her creations reference local folklore and her community blurring the lines between the real and the magical. She utilizes a combination of drawing, painting, textiles, and craft techniques to create really emotive surreal pieces." - Russell Loughlan

ELLIOT PITTAM

Elliott Pittam is a London-based artist whose figurative paintings drift between the folkloric and the surreal. Through scratched textures and worn surfaces, Pittam’s world feels both sacred and lived-in - part myth, part memory - evoking stories that fade softly but never fully disappear.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I’ve seen Elliot's work before, and I love the way his paintings combine folkloric and surreal elements, his figurative work blends reality with dreamlike imagination. His use of warm earthy tones - worn, scratched and textured. His depictions create a mix of the familiar and the fantastical." - Russell Loughlan

GRACE CRABTREE

Grace Crabtree lives on the Jurassic coast, and her work draws from the land and sea. She works primarily in egg tempera, and the ancient technique of buon fresco, involving painting on damp lime plaster. The imaginative potential of this complex, alchemical process has inspired the subject of recent works – depictions of rocks, earth, water, or the body held in crystallised colour suspension as the image becomes ‘stone’.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"These really speak to me, mainly as I live in the landscape she is painting. The rich depictions of the cliffs, rocks and ocean. The Jurassic coast is so ancient and her painting techniques reflect this." - Jess Wheeler

"I’m always drawn to landscape paintings as there is such a rich history of the genre. Grace’s medium, egg tempera, is also a traditional way of painting. In Grace’s work both the genre of English landscape and the medium of egg tempera are re-imagined as she gives the work a modernity and luminosity." - Jonathan Brook

HATTIE LANDELLS

Hattie Landells's work is interested in how our understanding of the divine or the sacred continue to intersect with contemporary image making. Her work embraces magical thinking, exploring and constructing a visual language of echoes and equivalents. A familiarity with rural England from childhood continually draws Hattie back to an exploration of the interface between the human and more-than-human world - animal, vegetable and mineral.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I enjoy the softness and subtle abstraction of her work. They are quite dreamlike and thought provoking." - Jess Wheeler

ISABEL FARCHY

A designer working in textiles and with natural dyes, Isabel creates wonky, abstract compositions in linens and wools. She favours working with salvaged, reused materials, integrating the marks of time and former uses into her designs, and as a statement against the ecological damage caused by new production in the textiles industry. With Italian heritage, Isabel is strongly influenced by the work of her Milanese grandmother and Italian designers of the second half of the 20th century.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Her play with light is so beautiful. I like that her use of recycled materials is a statement against the ecological damage caused by new production in the textiles industry. Creating a useable object into an artwork is something I admire and try to emulate in my own work." - Jess Wheeler

KATIE MOORE

Katie's practice evolved from illustration to ceramics to blend visual storytelling with clay forms and painted surfaces. Working primarily with coiling techniques, Katie treats each piece as both object and image, often inspired by theatre sets, natural landscapes, and the environments she moves through. She considers her sculptures as props within imagined scenes, using slips and underglazes to build vibrant, layered finishes that celebrate texture and play.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Her work is a gorgeous combination of clay and colour. Each piece is bold but not intrusively so and has a tactile quality which draws you into wanting to connect with it. Katie displays a wonderful eye, which is playful yet balanced with a lot of depth. Her work appears heartfelt and genuinely memorable." - Busola Evans

KEZIAH MORNIN

Keziah Mornin uses cinematic devices to frame narratives and impulses from her own life, treading the line between the comedic and the traumatic. Staging events for dramatic effect, and drawing attention to the surrealism found in familiar scenes. Through her work she explores universal crises and subjects in small and intimate ways and communicates her own personal fears and delights. 

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Keziah’s works are steeped in interesting references that immediately make me want to know more. I love the suggested narratives and her intricate mark making." - Georgia Spray

LUCY NAUGHTON

Mixed media artist Lucy Naughton takes inspiration from the collected materials that fill her home. In the sorting and arranging of antique frames, books, and papers, abstract paintings and collages come together in an intuitive way, forming collections that sit happily together or individually. The signs of age and imperfections in the materials used are embraced and make each piece totally unique.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I really like it when the artist considers the whole work and Lucy seems to pay wonderful attention to the framing of her works as well as what’s inside. A really nice patina and soul to the art that brings to mind 20th century abstraction. I know these works are very versatile and could suit any number of interiors." - Jonathan Brook

MAMIE YOUNG

Mamie Young is a Los Angeles-based painter whose intimate yet surreal compositions probe emotional weight, distortion, and identity through the unlikely language of inflatable forms. In her current practice, inflatables become more than curious objects; they stand in for the fragile architectures we build around feeling and self-perception. By pairing the everyday and the uncanny, she opens quiet spaces for reflection on how we carry and conceal our narratives.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I admire her unlikely combination of humour with deep introspection. Her subject matter is moving and surprising. The warmth of her palette and distortion of subject is very pleasing." - Jess Wheeler

PHOEBE HOWARD

Phoebe Howard studied Textile Design at Chelsea College of Art, graduating in 2022 with a specialism in embroidery. She uses drawing as a theatre for her inner world, winding together personal myths that neither conclude nor follow a familiar course. Creating a world suspended between reality and imagination, Phoebe’s work embraces the spirit of the carnivalesque.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I love the playfulness to Phoebe’s works - they have a nostalgia to them and a cheekiness that brings a smile to my face." - Georgia Spray

RACHNA GARODIA

Rachna Garodia's work predominantly involves hand embroidery and weaving. Her intricately woven textures are inspired by her daily walks, capturing the atmosphere, tone and emotion of landscapes. Material exploration through bringing unexpected textures together in a warp has always been her starting point. All works are unique and bespoke; each takes shape slowly in her studio and is later crafted into screens, space dividers and frames. 

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"A beautiful preservation of an age-old craft. Racha has a clever way of layering unexpected materials and textures in a way that feels organic and effortless. I really like the nature theme to her work and her use of found materials speaks to the importance of sustainability." - Busola Evans

SARA WINFIELD

Sara Winfield is an abstract artist based in Western Australia. Her work explores the complexities of being a woman, focusing on the emotional landscapes that define female existence. Through large-scale abstract paintings, Winfield uses a mix of acrylics, oils, and oil sticks and layers found materials such as paper, gravel, sawdust, and sand to create textured, tactile surfaces reflecting the rawness of her subject matter.  

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Sara’s abstract paintings radiate with colour and emotion and I really like how she combines the shades in such an expressive way. The use of materiality is also another draw – she mixes acrylics and oils with less likely elements such as sawdust –  which fills the pieces with texture and evokes moods." - Busola Evans

"These works are bold and expressive with a sensitive and often quite tonal use of colour. The best of both worlds." - Jonathan Brook

TOM COLLISON

Tom Collison aims to capture moments in time - where materials are pushed, squeezed, or compressed into an unnatural state. This constant exploration of compression results in a juxtaposition of softness and rigidity, manipulating these materials so they remain suspended at the brink of transformation. The resulting forms are playful, inviting a sense of vulnerability and awakening the innate desire for playfulness. 

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I love the tactility of Tom’s work, he flips what we think we know about materiality on its head - making paper appear sculptural and giving sculptural works a softness." - Georgia Spray