I have become interested in the unseen dimensions of a sculpture – the footprint and inner void – and how this representation of the underprivileged viewpoint of a sculpture could become a metaphor for the transvaluation we see in politics happening around the world. It is about exploring a sculptures’ shadow and the life that exists within these shadows.
I want to explore the hidden viewpoints of iconic sculptures, taking as a starting point David Mach’s Brick Train (1997) in Darlington. I will do this through photography, using equipment such as a borescope and then lithographic print. Lithography is a unique printing process where you can use a technique – touché – to create fascinating organic shifting textures that have the quality of steam, water or soil. I have not worked with print before and would use the prize money to work with master printer Lee Turner of Hole Editions Newcastle to learn the process over the course of a year and create a series of lithographic prints which I would then work to have exhibited.
For the past 20 years I have made sculpture using clay. I have had success with this work but commercially it is not sustainable as sculpture is difficult to sell, expensive to store and expensive to ship so it’s very difficult for me to create international opportunities for my work.
I have wanted for a long time to find a way of working in 2-dimensions that grew from my sculptural work and could in turn inform it. This project achieves these things. It also opens a new way of working for me which could give me access to international sculpture collections and therefore international working opportunities. It is a project that has the potential to unlock sculpture collections for audiences by creating works that shed new light on iconic works of sculpture.
I understand David Mach’s Brick Train in Darlington includes special bricks with holes in it to allow bats to seek refuge inside. I am interested in inserting a small borescope camera inside these holes to document the interior void of the sculpture. I will use a small amount of light, enough to capture texture and form of the interior, but I am also interested in the dark shadow as this shadow will then be transformed using the lithographic process touché, into the complex and swirling texture of steam, evoking the memory of the steam train Brick Train commemorates.
I have contacted the charity The Bat Conservation Trust who have confirmed that I will not disturb the bats if I insert the borescope no more than a few inches into the bricks. Nor will a gentle light directed from outside into the void disturb any bats that may be resting within.
I believe that working with Brick Train to create a series of prints which i will work to seek exhibition opportunities for nationally and internationally, will raise the profile of the creative arts in Darlington. It will also refresh audiences understanding and appreciation of this work nearly 30 years on from its creation.
I am a sculptor living/working in Newcastle upon Tyne. My
distinguished carear as an artist and educator, primarily working with the
medium of clay spans twenty years, with major achievements including a solo exhibition No Dimensions, Matt’s Gallery (2025); A is for Alma, Hatton
Gallery (2024); Night Portraits, De La Warr Pavilion (2023); Spanish Lobe,
Camden Arts Centre(2011) which presented the work created on the inaugural
ceramics fellowship; an exhibition at Alma Enterprises of work made as
Sainsbury Scholar at the British School in Rome (2008-09) and a collaborative
exhibition with Celia Hempton at Cell Projects (2014). As well as two
monographs, my work featured in Vitamin C: Clay and Ceramic in
Contemporary Art (Phaidon, 2017). In 2019 the Arts Council recognised my
contribution as a British woman artist when they purchased 5 works and
included my work in the seminal exhibition Breaking the Mould: Sculpture by
Women Since 1945. Recent works have dealt with explorations of the complex, often contradictory
aspects of the bodily and emotional experience of motherhood. I have also recently
explored themes of mortality, memorial, rebirth, and the cycle of life; themes that
have preoccupied me since Covid-19 and becoming a parent. Lighting was an important material within exhibition’s A is for Alma
(Hatton, 2024) and No Dimensions (Matt’s Gallery, 2025). By creating vivid
shadows, which sat in dialogue with the sculptures, I became interested in the
footprint of a sculpture their inner voids.
2006 – MA Royal College of Art (Distinction)
2004 – MPhil Glasgow School of Art
2002 – BA (Hons) Glasgow School of Art (1st)
2023 Arts Council England Project Grant for solo exhibition, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne.
2022 Wellcome Trust Project Grant. Principle Investigator. Death, Imagination, and the Clay Body explores how sculpture can give form to grief.
2020 – 2022 Leverhulme Research Fellow. Project title: Rewriting Clay
2017 Inaugural BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art/Bothy Project Artist in Residence, Isle of Eigg, Scotland.
2011 Artist in Residence, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden, Aberdeenshire
2010 – 2011 Inaugural Ceramics Fellow. Camden Arts Centre, London. Selected by Jenni Lomax and Richard Slee.
2008 – 2009 Sainsbury Scholar in Sculpture and Drawing British School at Rome
2004 Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship exploring the use of clay within contemporary architectural practices in France, Spain, Italy, and Japan.
2005 Jerwood Drawing Prize. I won second prize for my series, Mantelpiece Maps.
2002 Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland Millennium Award for the creation of a temporary public sculpture, Garnet Hill, Glasgow.
2002 Winner of the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award.
In 2023 I was awarded an ACE project grant for an ambitious programme of events, workshops and a collaboration with Ballet Lorent to accompany a solo exhibition A is for Alma, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne.
I organised a symposium with visiting speakers including distinguished Psychoanalyst Juliette Vamos from Vamos, and organised and ran workshops for local primary schools, local mother and baby groups.
This is just one example of leading and organising an ambitious public facing project.
2017 Winner of the Inaugural WalPawb Public Art Commission, Wrexham. Creation of three large murals for rotating tri-vision billboards in Wrexham’s flagship new market and arts centred designed by Featherstone Young. This project involved extensive public engagement activities in the form of workshops and interviews.
2019 Arts Council England acquire five of my sculptures for their collection.
2025 Digby Warde-Aldam, No Dimensions Review, The Week. March 2025
2024 Beth Williamson, A is for Alma exhibition review. International Sculpture Magazine
2023 Skye Sherwin, ‘I felt extreme confusion: was I one or two people?’: Katie Cuddon’s sculptural explorations of motherhood. Guardian Interview, June 2023
2021 Cécile Poimbœuf-Koizumi; Stephen Ellcock, Jeux de Mains. Chose Commune, France
2017 Clare Lilly. Vitamin C: Contemporary Art, Clay, and Ceramics, Phaidon
2017 Inaugural BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art/Bothy Project Artist in Residence, Isle of Eigg, Scotland.
2011 Artist in Residence, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden, Aberdeenshire
2010 – 2011 Inaugural Ceramics Fellow. Camden Arts Centre, London. Selected by Jenni Lomax and Richard Slee.
2008 – 2009 Sainsbury Scholar in Sculpture and Drawing British School at Rome, Italy
Email: katiecuddon@hotmail.com
Address: 23 Belle Vue Avenue, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, NE3 1AH, GB
Local Authority: Tyne and Wear
