Nico Conti

Having lived on the small island of Malta all my life meant that I was constantly surrounded by family and tradition. Leaving the persistent heat of the Mediterranean sun, and building a life in the metropolis that is London, has exposed me to a vast number of resources and opportunities. This sudden shift from the cobbled streets of Malta, to a global hub, impacted my work the most.

With the swift advancements in technology, art and craft are affected by modern tools and machinery. I now look at clay and seek to find different ways of working with it, and developing new methods of subverting processes, thus drawing together my fondness for material, and my inquisitive nature.

I strive to bind my work with themes, which appear to run parallel to each other, something I have always been drawn to – the traditional and contemporary, stability and weakness, order and chaos. Each side has a little bit of the other; there are no clear-cut boundaries, and it is this overlap that I draw my inspiration from. To me, clay is not simply a material, but a tool that serves as a visual language that expresses my ideas.