ARTIST BIO
Zahra Priddle is an accomplished jewellery designer turned sculptor whose fascination since childhood for architectural forms and monumental structures led her to consider scaling her work. It was while studying for her Masters, that she began to experiment with new materials, techniques and processes. The nature of her investigation was to map a process of scaling her hand manipulated paper forms to create medium and large scale sculptural pieces for interior spaces, incorporating both digital and analogue methods.
Her organic structure, A Division of Internal Space (2019), marries digital technology, architectural techniques and craft sensibilities. Using the ancient method of steam bending wood and made entirely by hand, Zahra highlights the need to embrace digital processes but not be governed by them, ultimately favouring the physical connection between herself and the material or order to understand and respect its possibilities and limitations. Her work questions the interplay between form and space, light and shadow and our interaction with large physical objects, designed to transform and simultaneously divide space.
A graduate of Central Saint Martins, Zahra achieved a First Class Honours Degree in Jewellery Design in 1994. After success with her degree show, she caught the attention of Donna Karan who invited her to design accessories in New York. She subsequently returned to London and alongside establishing her own label, took a position with Japanese fine jewellers, Mikimoto Pearls. From 2006 to 2014, Zahra relocated with her family abroad where she continued to develop her artistic practice. She returned to study a Masters in Craft at the University of Brighton, graduating with Distinction in 2019.
Currently, she is an Artist In Residence at a private school in West Sussex, UK.