#Blown away winner series#

For this show, I have made an enormous strawberry and used a mirroring technique to make it look obscene. I’ve been thinking about our idealised conception of food – how the farmed strawberries we eat are so unlike the tiny, seed-covered wild ones. How do the works comment on our relationship to food? Here, the 3D forms take inspiration from still-life paintings, their composition and depiction of expendable objects.

But I’m also influenced by historical works of art.

I’ve been working with glass for 12 years, always experimenting with different techniques.

#Blown away winner series#

How does this series draw on traditional still-life paintings? In your current online exhibition with Messums London you’re showing a new body of work, ‘Plenty’. I think had the advantage of diversity – because I’m a sculptor more than traditional glassblower, I could come up with different forms quite easily, which gave me an edge. Why do you think you won the competition?Ī lot of it was luck – the other contestants were fantastic. I hope people in the UK can start to understand what we’re losing in terms of craft, heritage, history, skills and contemporary practice without publicly funded institutions for glass making. A lot of artist there make their work by doing projects with different institutions. Glassblowing needs a lot of discipline so I can see how it might change your perspective or your emotional state. One thing I learned is how many institutions they have dedicated to glass – a lot of them with charitable status, so people from underprivileged or challenging backgrounds can go and learn the craft. The American studio glass scene is much bigger than the UK’s.

I’m hoping to use those to make work for an exhibition I have planned at the Habatat Galleries in Detroit, the flagship glass gallery in the US. People over here think it’s amazing that someone from the UK has won a US-based show.Īs the winner of Blown Away, I was awarded a residency at the Corning Museum, which I’m hoping to do in the autumn, as well as another at the Pittsburgh glass centre. We actually filmed it a year ago, so I’ve had to keep shtum since then, but the past week has been crazy and I’ve had lots of support. 2nd February 2021 | Blog Glass Artist Elliot Walker wins Netflix series ‘Blown Away’Ĭrafts magazine: How does it feel to have won Blown Away, and what happens next?Įlliot Walker: It’s still sinking in.