New craft stars to discover at Collect 2025
In our increasingly digitised world, what role does craft play? If you’re looking for the answer, Collect 2025 is a good place to start. Showing at Somerset House until 2 March, London’s leading annual art fair is fertile ground to discover new names and source unique pieces for your interiors.
‘With the desire and appreciation for the handmade, beautiful materials, making skills and provenance, the relevance of craft in our lives has never been greater,’ says the fair’s director Isobel Dennis. ‘Twenty-one years on, Collect remains true to its original pioneering objectives and focus, introducing the freshest international collectable craft into the market on an annual basis.’
Alongside the chance to see the Loewe Craft Prize 2024 winner Andrés Anza’s totemic ceramic, works on show include furniture, glassware, jewellery, clothing, metalwork, sculpture, textiles and woodwork. While there are 40 international galleries showing work by 400 modern artists, the focus is on contemporary work – 80 per cent of the material exhibited has been created in the last five years. somersethouse.org.uk
‘What Grows in the Dark Comes to Light’ by Darren Appiagyei
Set within a dark, alcove-like room on the ground floor of the great neo-classical building, is wood sculptor Darren Appiagyei’s affecting showcase. It’s on display as part of Collect Open, the fair’s platform for creative installations, and is designed as a tribute to the London-based artist’s late mother.
Ten unique vessels are on display, and each one is sculpted by hand from banksia nuts using a lathe, dremel and pyrography machine (used for burning marks into wood). While in the space, visitors are encouraged to touch the pieces and feel the different textures, grooves and growths, which reference the fatal fibroids his mother suffered from. darrenappiagyei.co.uk
‘Articulate’ by Michael Healey
On the first floor of Somerset House, Kinsale-based craftsman Michael Healey is exhibiting this floor lamp he designed specially for the fair. Positioned in the corner of a room curated by the Design Museum’s Maria McLintock for the Design & Crafts Council Ireland, the limited-edition light is made from bamboo using precision woodworking techniques. It’s a visual manifestation of Healey’s artistic ethos: to balance tradition and technology. mish.ie
‘Flow’ by Isobel Napier
A champion of natural materials and an advocate for the preservation of heritage textile traditions, Isobel Napier is exhibiting work from her ongoing hanging washi paper series. The artist, who has been shortlisted for Collect Fair’s Brookfield Property Craft Prize, combines modern technology, such as laser cutting and 3D milling processes, with traditional manual techniques to process the Japanese paper. Meanwhile, the chair (pictured) was created with her partner and fellow designer James Trundle. isobelnapier.com
‘Lines of Enquiry’ by Five
Also on display at Collect is a selection of works from Five, a platform dedicated to contemporary silver and metalwork. A regular Collect exhibitor, this year Five is focusing on ‘precision and strong lines’ through five leading UK-based silversmiths: Angela Cork, Jessica Jue, Ane Christensen, Alice Fry and Rajesh Gogna. This delicate vase by Angela Cork (pictured) is hand sculpted from sterling silver and demonstrates the beauty in simplicity. fivecollection.co.uk
