By Janice Blackburn, Financial Times, Dec 8, 2007
The creative industries are a profitable export for the UK, and picking out the up-and-coming names in the design world is an increasingly exciting challenge. Over the past few years, for instance, I have been fortunate enough to buy work from product designer Tord Boontje, glass artist Annie Cattrell and ceramicist Kate Malone at the start of their careers; they are all now at the top of their professions.
The New Designers exhibition, a two-week event held in London each summer, is the leading showcase for the UK's most promising arts graduates and gives professionals and the public an opportunity to spot new talent and to purchase their work.
Although some of the designs on show during this even might lack finesse, it is still possible to appreciate outstanding potential. Here is my round-up of the graduates of 2007 that I predict will prove to be future collectables.
Tamsin van Essen graduated from Central Saint Martins with a First Class degree in ceramic design, having previously gained a degree in physics and philosophy from Oxford University. Professor Rob Kesseler, her tutor, drew her to my attention as someone of exceptional talent. Her "Medical Heirlooms" collection of sculptural apothecary jars with cracked and distorted surfaces that she presented at her degree show was certainly intruiging. She wanted to create "object of blemished beauty exploring the stigma of diseases and questioning the contemporary obsession with perfection", she explains. Her bizarre influences include a variety of afflictions such as syphilis, acne and osteoporosis.
"Judging by the reaction at my degree show of fascination and revulsion, they seemed to hit the spot," she says. But don't be put off by the irony; van Essen's pots are complex, mature and meticulously crafted works of art.
(contact: tamsin@vanessendesign.com)
