Amy Daniels is a ceramic artist making sculptural objects for indoor and outdoor spaces. Visits to junkyards have often inspired her work – collecting obsolete objects and examining their qualities. Amy captures details seen in discarded metal in junkyards and in the deteriorating surfaces of old industrial structures. The effects of nature and essentially the effects of time on the artefacts of urban life are important aspects. Rust, cracks, bright layers of peeling paintwork and rough, worn edges are the qualities she transfers through her work. Through studying the changing surfaces Amy strives to allow these qualities to have a new strength and longevity. Each piece has a unique surface and form, and is slab built using crank clay. A geometrical shape is often used as a body to carry intricate and delicate surface details which can then be sited in a garden setting, and allowed to slowly become part of its environment, echoing the beauty in discarded junkyard treasures.
Amy has a very hands-on, experimental approach to design, always seeking to push her material and discover new processes. She prefers to develop her work with each new piece, carrying through with techniques that she has found to work well. Because of this Amy rarely repeats exactly the same piece twice.
At the moment Amy is working from a studio space at Sale Grammar School, Cheshire, as an Artist in Residence, combining running workshops with the community and teaching some specific skills to the students with the development of her own work.