Nuala Torp Smith
BA (Hons) Product Design and Craft
Ludic
Nuala Torp is a designer and maker whose work exists to distract from the formality of the everyday. Working across glass and ceramics, Torp has developed a playful methodology, working instinctively and often spontaneously in order to find balance between materials, colour and form, in order to create a sense of lightness.
Torp has developed an unusual technique of extruding porcelain that began with using various household objects as instruments for play in the workshop. This idea evolved into creating an immersive and automated method of extruding using components of a three-dimensional printer, directed by hand, to be able to draw with porcelain using one continual line. This methodology creates a unique and distinctive visual language, as seen in her recent project, Ludic.
The project, Ludic, has been an exploration of how delicacy, playfulness, order and chaos can coincide to create a sense of lightness. Ludic is grounded by a series of playful material explorations in porcelain and hot glass, and an interest in the balance, interaction and collaboration of contrasting materials and how the way in which the work is viewed can create an atmosphere of its own.
