We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2020 HIGH Prize for Creative Excellence awarded to a MA student graduating from the Royal Collage of Art is Bethany Walker.

Bethany’s work speaks directly to the brief in demonstrating an innovative approach to materials and dexterity in their handling. Her considerable experience of working with hand-blown glass is self-evident and is underlined by the fact that she currently works for the London Glassblowing gallery and studio.

The brief also requests that work should engage, however conceptually, with the human body and/or the spaces it occupies; Bethany’s work reflects her upbringing in the heartland of England’s glass and steel industries, and in particular to the machines that have formed the lives of factory workers including her own. She has adapted mechanical processes of bending, cutting, grinding and welding to produce a succession of sculptures manufactured in steel rod using her own body as a template.

Bethany has already won numerous prizes and we are extremely pleased to be able to add our voice to the chorus of approval, support and interest. We look forward to seeing her work and career prosper in the future.
The Prize has been awarded after Heads of Programme each put forward the work of three graduating MA students to create a shortlist for consideration by Professor Gemma Blackshaw and Ian Garlant, Director of Communications at HIGH. It marks the start of a collaboration with the College that is part of HIGH’s ongoing commitment to engage with and support creative individuals and institutions.