LONDON.- Camden Arts Centre and Freelands Foundation announced the Freelands – Lomax Ceramics Fellowship, a new partnership in support of emerging artists working with clay.

From 2017 – 2021, the Freelands – Lomax Ceramics Fellowship will offer three six month part-time residencies at Camden Arts Centre followed by an exhibition the following year. The first recipient Fellow will be Jonathan Baldock beginning in September 2017. This new partnership builds on a tradition of Ceramics Fellowships at Camden Arts Centre which have supported the careers of rising artists including Katie Cuddon, Phoebe Cummings, Jesse Wine, Salvatore Arancio, and most recently Phil Root and Giles Round of The Grantchester Pottery.

Thanks to the support of the Foundation, the annual Fellowship will offer mentoring opportunities, build new partnerships with organisations outside of London and provide the time, space and resources to enable Fellows to experiment, develop and present their work within cross-disciplinary environments. Support for the Fellowship comes at a time when many contemporary artists are incorporating the medium of clay and ceramics within their work, often through self-taught processes. This Fellowship will be able to provide the facilities as well as technical support for the Fellows to develop their work ambitiously.

With Jenni Lomax stepping down in September 2017, the Fellowship has been named to mark Lomax’s tenure as Director of Camden Arts Centre and credits the Foundation’s generous support. The Ceramics Fellowship is a cornerstone of the Centre’s artist residency programme. It is central to the mission of nurturing artists, championing excellence and providing an environment in which risk-taking is encouraged within an ethos of learning and debate. Sitting at the centre of an extensive education and public events programme – including performances, talks, open studios, and workshops – the Fellowship introduces and engages artists, students, course participants and general visitors to the diverse processes and possibilities of working with clay and ceramics.

The first Fellow, London-based artist Jonathan Baldock, works across multiple platforms including sculpture, installation and performance. With work often taking on a biographical form, he addresses the trauma, stress, sensuality, mortality, and spirituality around our relationship to the body and the space it inhabits. For his Fellowship, Baldock will continue his ongoing interest in the contrast between the material qualities of ceramic and fabric used within his work. Concerned with removing the functional aspects of the materials he engages, Baldock instead works in a performative way through his sculptural assemblages bringing the viewer, the object and the space they simultaneously occupy into question as a ritual act or theatre.

Jenni Lomax, Director of Camden Arts Centre, said: “There has been a space to work with clay at Camden Arts Centre since its foundation in 1965. Over time it has been used by many people of all ages, some well-practiced in ceramics, others learning new skills. Refurbished in 2004, the Ceramics Studio now sits at the heart of much that we do. I am delighted that Freelands Foundation are supporting the exciting next stage of our Ceramics Fellowship programme. Their generous award will see three innovative artists have the time and space to develop, make and show new work in clay. It will also allow the Fellows and Camden Arts Centre to collaborate with other institutions outside of London. I am extremely honoured that the Foundation wishes to add my name to the title of this influential project which will offer the artists – starting with Jonathan Baldock – and our visitors amazing opportunities for the next four years to come.”

Melanie Cassoff, Managing Director of Freelands Foundation, said: “At the Freelands Foundation, we are very excited to be working in collaboration with Camden Arts Centre (CAC), a leading arts organisation with an extensive record supporting ceramics practice. With the decline of ceramics facilities over recent years, it’s organisations like CAC which are vital to the longevity of this discipline. This Fellowship is integral to broadening essential programming and innovative practice in this field. We are very pleased that this ceramics programme will be a tribute to the enduring work of Director Jenni Lomax, who has dedicated her life's work to supporting contemporary artists and art education. Long may it continue.”

Artist Jonathan Baldock said: “For nearly 10 years ceramics have been incorporated into my sculptures, paintings, costumes and installation, combining it with materials as disparate as fabric, glass, bronze and hair. However, the Fellowship at Camden Arts Centre will allow me the time and facilities to focus on evolving my expertise from my self-taught foundations to create new and ambitious works that challenge expectations of how and what ceramic as a material can perform within an artwork.”