Scottish artist Lorna Phillips wins top class residency at Glenfiddich Distillery

By Michelle Henderson

March 18 2023, 7:24 pm

23-year-old Lorna Phillips, who graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2021, won this year's Glenfiddich Residency Prize. Image: Colin Hattersley

A young Scottish artist, who digs her own clay to create her sculptures, has won a £15,000 Moray art prize.

Lorna Phillips, 23, who graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2021, has won this year’s Glenfiddich Residency Award.

The award is Scotland’s biggest prize for an emerging artist.

Miss Phillips, who lives in Edinburgh, beat off stiff competition from 56 artists in painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, film, installation and performance to take home first place.

The creator digs up her own clay to construct her sculptures. Image: Colin Hattersley.

She will join artists from across the world, including Canada, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Finland at Glenfiddich’s Distillery in Dufftown this summer as part of the international artist residency programme.

Young artist sets her sights on Dufftown

The young creator grew up in Dumfries and Galloway before graduating Edinburgh College of Art.

She spent the final year of her degree living in Tallinn, Estonia, and has exhibited her work in Scotland, Estonia and Slovenia.

Her art is creating clay objects, made from materials she has dug up in different parts of the country. She also works in drawing and film.

She describes her practice as “journeying into the biography of the land” through the medium of clay.

Ms Phillips will join artists from across the world, including Canada, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Finland at Glenfiddich’s distillery in Dufftown this summer as part of the international artist residency programme. Image: Colin Hattersley

She said: “In producing a body of work, the walking, digging, carrying and processing is of equal importance to the finished sculpture.”

The Glenfiddich residency prize is awarded annually at the RSA New Contemporaries exhibition in Edinburgh, which brings together the work of new graduates selected from all five Scottish art schools.

Due to cancellations during the pandemic, the current exhibition focuses on those who graduated in 2021.

Andy Fairgrieve, co-ordinator of the Glenfiddich artists in residence programme, said: “Lorna Phillips’ work is a clean and pure celebration of form. Her combination of materials and craft, exploring a particular area’s social heritage and telling its stories, is not just expressed in her quiet yet thoughtful clay sculptures but in drawing, photography and film.

“I am very much looking forward to seeing how her work develops as she spends time at Glenfiddich this summer.”