KENDAL.- One of the UK’s most exciting contemporary artists is displaying work at two Lakeland Arts venues.

Royal College of Art graduate, Katie Spragg is one of the country’s finest up-and-coming talents. She combines clay with a range of processes including animation, illustration and installation. Her work is in demand; a recent piece, Hedgerow, was purchased in spring 2017 by the world’s leading museum of art and design, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Spragg is showing two digital works at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal (12 January – 28 April 2018) coinciding with the display of Claude Monet’s Haystacks: Snow Effect. Both works will evoke a sense of wonder about being outside in nature.

Stop-frame animation In the Meadow explores memories, experiences and interactions with nature. It takes viewers down among the grass to give an insects eye-view. And While Away sees visitors recline on a chair to watch grass made of porcelain blow in the wind.

Spragg, 30, said: “It’s a real privilege for my work to go on show at the same time as Monet. I hope in some way my art surprises visitors, makes them curious and gives a sense of discovery.”

An exhibition of Spragg’s ceramics is also on view at Blackwell, The Arts & Crafts House (26 January - 10 May 2018).

Her exhibition showcases eight new responses to Blackwell and the surrounding landscape, alongside six existing works previously displayed by the Craft Council COLLECT at the Saatchi Gallery, Miami Art Week and the British Ceramic Biennial Award show.

Spragg spent a week at Blackwell in November and was inspired to create new works based on her experience. She said, “In the mornings Blackwell feels very serene. The nooks and corners of the house lend themselves to daydreaming, particularly at this time of day. I became interested in how the landscape is framed through the windows of the house and also how nature is brought inside.”

Kerri Offord, Head of Curatorial at Lakeland Arts, said, “Katie Spragg is a diverse and emerging contemporary artist. We are delighted to have not one, but two, of our venues showing her work. At Abbot Hall Katie brings two digital pieces that focus on nature. This coincides with the arrival of world masterpiece Haystacks: Snow Effect by Monet. Visitors will be encouraged to consider both Spragg’s contemporary and Monet’s iconic responses to the wonder of nature, environment and light.”

She added, “Ceramic is currently enjoying a resurgence and that is partly due to contemporary artists like Katie Spragg choosing this medium for their work. We are particularly excited to exhibit Katie’s new ceramic work inspired by Blackwell and its surrounding environment, alongside her existing pieces which have been shown internationally.”

Katie Spragg is one of several female artists making a key contribution to Lakeland Arts’ exciting 2018 programme of exhibitions and displays. Other contemporary artists exhibiting at Lakeland Arts include Patricia MacKinnon-Day and Alison Watt.

The 2018 programme links to the national celebrations surrounding the Representation of the People Act 1918 which allowed women to vote for the first time in Britain, highlighting gender discrimination in the art world.

Katie Spragg graduated from MA Ceramics & Glass at the Royal College of Art in 2016. Both prior to this and since, she has exhibited, held residencies and taught ceramics at institutions both nationally and internationally. Recent achievements include; the acquisition of her piece Hedgerow by the Victoria and Albert Museum, Highly commended in the Young Masters Emerging Woman Art Prize.