During BCB 2025, four artists were selected from our Fresh exhibition to take part in artist residencies at leading academic and cultural institutions as part of our Fresh Talent programme.
Kaytea Budd-Brophy was selected to take part in a residency at the University of Staffordshire. She will then return to present new work at the 2027 British Ceramics Biennial. We asked Kaytea about her experience during her Fresh Talent residency and the impact on her artistic practice.
About Kaytea Budd-Brophy
Kaytea is a North London-based ceramic artist whose practice explores fragility, resilience and the human experience through porcelain vessels. With a background in textiles and fashion and over 20 years’ experience teaching in Further and Higher Education, she brings a strong interest in material, surface, pattern and construction to her ceramic practice. Her work involves cutting, dismantling and reconstructing vessels, exploring the beauty in breaks and how transformation can reveal rather than erase traces of the past. Kaytea completed the City Lit Diploma in Ceramics in 2025 and was a recipient of the BCB Fresh Talent Award. Her work has been featured in Ceramics Now, London Potters and Ceramic Review.
“During my residency at the University of Staffordshire, I wanted to push my exploration of the vessel further, particularly through cutting, dismantling and reconstruction. I begin by throwing and carefully refining my forms before deliberately disrupting them, cutting into the vessel, taking it apart and rebuilding it. I’m interested in what happens when something is broken and transformed, and in finding beauty in the breaks.”
BCB: Can you briefly tell us about your practice?
KBB: In my ceramic practice, I primarily focus on porcelain and explore the relationship between fragility and strength. I use the vessel as a metaphor for how our experiences shape and change us.
I start by throwing a form, carefully turning and trimming the work. After preparing the forms, I cut, dissect, dismantle and reassemble the vessels, deliberately disrupting their original form before reconstructing them. I’m interested in what happens when something is broken apart and put back together, and how traces of its previous life remain visible.
My background is in textiles and fashion. I worked with material, surface, pattern and construction for many years. These interests have naturally carried into my ceramic practice. I also trained in Person-Centred Counselling, which has deepened my interest in people, their experiences and the things that shape us.
I’m fascinated by the unpredictability of clay and the evidence of touch, pressure and movement embedded in the making process.
BCB: What were your expectations before starting your residency?
KBB: I was hoping this experience would give me the time and space to really immerse myself in my practice. Most importantly, I wanted space to experiment and be completely open to exploring where the work might take me.
I wanted to challenge some of the ways I had been working and investigate what might happen if I pushed the process of dismantling and reconstructing vessels further. I was looking forward to the opportunity to work on a larger scale, in a different environment. The prospect of meeting other artists and MA students and be exposed to new ways of thinking and making was exciting too.
My expectation was to come away with new work, but the residency gave me something more valuable: a clearer understanding of where my practice could go next. It gave me the confidence to take more risks, work at a larger scale and be less concerned with controlling the outcome.
BCB: What has been the impact on your practice and what surprised you the most?
KBB: The residency has given me greater confidence to be experimental with shape, form, scale, and to embrace the unexpected. I’ve become more comfortable allowing the material and the process to influence the final outcome rather than trying to control everything.
I also really wanted the work I made during the residency to have ‘something of Stoke’ within it. The work feels connected to the place and its incredible ceramic history. I was, fortunately, able to explore some old plaster handle moulds to adapt within my work. This created an interesting connection between historic ceramic production and my contemporary practice, giving the work a physical sense of place.
What surprised me most was how much can emerge from simply giving yourself permission to take something apart. I’m interested in the idea that destruction can actually become part of a constructive process. Cutting into a vessel changes its identity, but it doesn’t erase its history.
The residency has made me think more deeply about the relationship between damage, transformation and resilience. I think that will have a significant impact on the direction of my work.
BCB: Was there any significant collaboration with another artist or organisation?
KBB: The residency created an important opportunity to work alongside MA students, other artists and another artist in residence. Being part of a shared studio environment meant I was able to have conversations about process, materials and ideas. I could also observe how other artists approached their own work.
Those exchanges were really valuable because they encouraged me to look at my own practice from different perspectives. Being surrounded by artists at different stages of their practice also created a sense of openness and curiosity, where ideas could be discussed, questioned and explored.
For me, the collaboration was less about producing something together and more about exchanging ideas, knowledge and experience. Seeing different approaches challenged some of my assumptions and encouraged me to think more openly about my own making. It also reminded me how valuable conversation and community are within an artistic practice. So much of our work can develop through being around other people who are questioning, experimenting and making.
BCB: What are you most excited to take forward in your practice?
KBB: I’m most excited about continuing to explore the vessel as a metaphor for the human experience. I want to push the process of dismantling and reconstruction further.
I want to experiment more, particularly with scale, repetition, fragmentation, attachments and the relationship between individual pieces and the whole. What interests me is bringing different elements together to create something new while still retaining traces of their previous identity and history.
I’m particularly interested in how something can be visibly broken or transformed while still retaining traces of what it was before. This idea of fragments, attachments and reconstruction feels like an area I have only just begun to explore.
The residency has given me the confidence to be more ambitious with this exploration. I’m excited to see how far I can take it and how the tension between fragility and strength can become even more central to my work.