Artist Residency St Mary Newington Close
Katie SurridgeCast bronze bees made by Katie Surridge with the residents, April 2025. Photo: Sam Nightingale
Cast bronze bees made by Katie Surridge with the residents, April 2025. Photo: Sam Nightingale
Katie Surridge, Artist in Residence at St Mary Newington Close
Katie Surridge was the second Tendergound artist in residence, spending April 2025 living and working at St Mary Newington Almshouse. With a background in metalworking and a keen interest in pushing the boundaries of materials, Katie combined metal casting and community engagement, looking at ancient beehives as a way to address ideas of shared living communities, a metaphor for thinking about spaces of care and shelter, and home making.
Katie ran workshops for residents to create Roman mosaics and to sculpt little faces in clay which she cast in bronze and added wings. Her mobile furnace was used to do live bronze pours in the garden (and barbecues). The elements have come together to create a new installation reflecting on the cooperative nature of bees as a symbol of community, and collective effort.
Biography
Katie Louise Surridge, studied at the Slade School of Art and completed her masters of art at Goldsmiths in 2022.She was awarded a Royal British Sculpture Society bursary in 2011 and In 2013 she spent 4 months in China as Swatch watches artist in residence, where she started Little Victories gallery, which operates from a bicycle.In 2017 she finished three years training as a blacksmith in Hereford at the National School of Blacksmithing and later exhibited as part of the New Contemporaries 2022. She has her own forge and metal workshop in Essex, which she works from whilst also teaching metal casting in the foundry at Chelsea college of art. Her practice is concerned with a connection to ancient tools and processes,an aversion to modern technology allows an interest in folklore, and stories or skills from the past to inspire her material choices, and making techniques.