• Up close of carving
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  • Up close of bronze carving
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  • Up close of glass carving
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  • Up close of carving
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  • Up close of carving
  • Up close of carving
  • Up close of carving
  • Up close of carving
  • Up close of carving
  • Up close of carving
  • Up close of carving
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  • Up close of carving
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  • Up close of red carving
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  • Up close of carving
  • Up close of carving

About the Artist

 

Born in 1975 in Kashmir, Pakistan, and raised in the north-west of England, Halima now lives and works in Shropshire. Her richly multicultural background is a powerful influence that resonates throughout her work.

 

Halima's natural creativity emerged early and was carefully nurtured through an art-based education.

 

Her work is a compelling fusion of cultural influences—rooted in her Asian heritage, inspired by African patterning, and driven by a deep fascination with architectural geometry. The result is a body of work that is both intense and playful, structured yet imaginative; bold, dynamic, and always original.

 

Working across a variety of media, Halima continues to explore and expand her creative practice. In recognition of her contribution to the arts, she was awarded an MBE in 2022 for Services to Art and a fellowship of the Royal Society of Sculptors in 2016.

 

Statement from David Coggins (lecturer)

"Where does Halima’s pre-occupation with carved form spring from? What are the roots of her fascination with carved space? These all-embracing obsessions of bringing into being the poetry of faceted forms are her creations.


They are buried in layers of forgotten history, like subcutaneous memories waiting to be plumbed; like the ocean deep they float in darkness waiting to be revealed by the light. Halima carves out parts of her history, an exorcism of thought forms, a compulsion to make manifest the intangible, transmuting it into something hard and permanent. Like life, everything begins with the energy of a thought.


Halima forms are energetic expressions of her psyche linking two cultures, like left and right hemispheres of the brain; logic and reason married to irrationality in order to formulate a style of working. Like slightly shifting sands her work refuses to stand still.

 

Halima wants her work to be on the edge of reason yet speaking with an eloquence that is understood by the universal consciousness altered states yet accessible tectonic plates in dialogue, setting up tensions, the Ley Lines of her world made visible within the forms and folds of her beloved earth."

 

Watch a short documentary of Halima here.

  • The work is of a high standard and creates an interesting contrast to the Da Vinci drawing. Can see the evolution of the process and the sculptures convey different ideas and theories. An excellent artist.
    – Jina

  • Cassell’s Work Is Subliminal in its originality, having no parallel in the sculptural or crafts genres, whose borders it crosses.
    – Jean Vacher, Collections Manger, Crafts Study Centre, Farnham

  • Beautiful – amazing to see someone work with such a variety of material to create such stunning, intricate pieces. I can imagine them out in the world, near water and nature. Beautiful, thank you.
    –

  • Halima’s work demonstrates incredible dedication and energy; one thing is clear, she will be among the future pathfinders and leaders.
    – Alan Grieve, Chairman, The Jerwood Foundation

  • I find her work uplifting, I would never consider buying it solely as an investment
    – Eric Knowles (Ceramics Expert)

  • I love this artist’s work. How she keeps her molten flowing themes through different media – stone, concrete, wood and even glass. Long to touch them. What a unique eye and hand she has. Wonderful.
    – Maureen Lepman

  • Her profound understanding of the geometric rules governing any given pattern, allow her to bend, or even break them.
    – Peter Randell-Page, Sculptor

  • While working, Cassell becomes deeply involved in each piece to the point where she is unaware of her surroundings even watching her work on a piece for a few minutes, it is obvious that the process commands all her attention
    – Emmanuel Cooper

  • Cassell’s work encompasses and generates complexity and surprise. All of her sculptural work shares a language of geometry and volume but each is intriguingly different
    – Elli Herring

  • Her main preoccupation and sculptural impulse is to penetrate beneath the skin of the form to reveal the structure within – the crystalline seed of the stone, or the skeleton-like armature she perceives within the clay. She does not carve exteriors but reveals interiors – the folded abstract inner landscapes of her singular and highly imaginative vision.
    – Andrew Lambirth, Art Critic - Spectator Magazine