Hilary Peat: Surrey Artist of the Year 2025 - One Year On

This one-year-on exhibition at New Ashgate Gallery celebrates Hilary's achievement as Surrey Artist of the Year 2025 and presents a new collection developed since receiving the award. About Her pieces, which are hand-built forms using slabs of earthenware clay, can be shown alone or as part of a group. The surfaces are painted with multiple layers of colour involving a combination of techniques including paper and wax resist, sgraffito, underglaze and glaze, creating a soft tactile quality, lending these pieces complexity and richness. The exhibition brings together landscape, geometry and skilled making, offering a vivid new view of one of Surrey's award-winning contemporary ceramic artists. she is originally from Scotland, Hilary studied Three Dimensional Design (Ceramics) at Loughborough University after which she completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Art Education leading to a long teaching career which continues to inform and enrich her creative process. Hilary's ceramic work captures the moods of the ever-changing landscape displaying rhythmic shifts of light, colour, and pattern. Inspired by reflections on water, shifting skies and the movement of colour across land and sea, each piece creates a harmonious dialogue between form and surface, where delicate gradations of colour and intricate geometric patterns enrich the sensory experience. As part of the Craft Your Year 2026 programme, families are invited to join Hilary's Introducing Sgraffito workshop at New Ashgate Gallery on 27 October, 11am-3pm. This free, hands-on drop-in session invites participants to explore surface design, pattern and clay, connecting Hilary's ceramic practice with Farnham's wider programme of accessible, maker-led craft activity. No booking is required. SAOY winners are supported by Patricia Baines Trust. Craft Your Year is supported by South Street Trust. Read more Toggle Crafts