Alnwick gallery receives award-winning glass art inspired by North East coast

Jo Kenny is a glass artist who graduated with a degree Glass and Ceramics from Sunderland University in 1986, going on to work in studios in London and Holland.

Originally from Doncaster, Jo moved to Redcar when she was 10 which sparked a lifelong connection to the North East coastline.

Upon her return home to the north in 2020, she found inspiration in the local coastal environments to create her series What Lies Beneath which received an Arts Council Award.

Jo, who now lives in Whitby, said: "When you're 10 and you move to the seaside, it's like you've died and gone to heaven.

“That was where my connection with the ocean started.I always knew I would eventually go back.

"When I came back up north after many years away, I got really excited about being on the beach and looking around in rock pools.”

Jo’s work can be found in many galleries across the UK and she is excited to announce that some of the collection is now on show at Alnwick’s Brightwater Gallery.

On how she got into glass art itself, she explained: "From being very, very little I knew I wanted to be an artist but I didn't really know in what medium.

"When I saw you could make glass as a degree, it just jumped off the page at me. All sorts of things popped into my mind.

"I remembered my grandma letting me play with her little glass animals. She had a cabinet full of glass that I just loved all of that from being very little and it all suddenly clicked."

Although Jo learnt her craft in Sunderland, the city’s National Glass Centre is permanently closing to the public on July 31 alongside the termination of the university's glass and ceramics degree programs.

"It's desperately sad,” Jo said. "It's such an important heritage craft and once it’s gone, it’s gone.

"There are still people fighting to see if it can be kept in public ownership so we shall watch this space.”