Recognised as one of the most distinctive and dynamic sculptors, Ludlow's Halima Cassell was awarded the 2024 Brookfield Properties Craft Award jointly with her gallery Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections at the Collect Art Fair in March.

Cassell is among the UK’s leading sculptors, with work in the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Hepworth Museum and the Walker Art Gallery and Museum in Liverpool and fulfilling commissions around the world.

Her work is instantly recognisable – strong geometric forms intricately carved to create dramatic pieces across which light plays to create a sense of movement. Her inspiration is pattern – from architecture, Islamic art and African surface pattern – something that speaks to everyone and takes every viewer of the work to a different place. “Pattern is a link between all of us,” she says.

As the 2024 Brookfield Properties Craft Award winner Halima has a solo show at 30 Fenchurch Street in London EC3. The show presents 'Virtues of Unity', an ongoing sculptural project through which she shares her reflections on the importance of defining our sense of identity, through using clay sourced from across the globe. Individuals' distinctive identities are explored and celebrated by creating clay sculptures using materials from across the globe, reflecting the diverse geology and climate of countries.

Fusing her Asian roots with a fascination for African pattern work and her deep passion for architectural geometry, Cassell’s work is instantly recognisable due to her bold, energetic designs and crisp carving.

As part of the award, her piece, Mariposa Lis (2024), made in hand-carved black clay, will become part of the Crafts Council's Collection, which now comprises over 1,800 objects.

Halima has developed Virtues of Unity over several years, a series of artworks symbolising the personal journey she undertook after a striking visit to Pakistan in 2009.

Halima Cassell's solo show runs concurrently with Brookfield Properties and the Crafts Council's one-off anniversary exhibition at 99 Bishopsgate, London EC2, ‘5&20’, to celebrate five years of the Brookfield Properties Craft Award for UK-based artists and 20 years Collect art fair.