• Up close of carving
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  • Up close of glass carving
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  • Up close of white carving
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About the Artist

Born in 1975 in Pakistan, brought up in Lancashire and now living in Shropshire, Halima's varied, multi-cultural background is tangibly present in her work.

Natural creativity presented itself at an early age and was nurtured to fruition as Halima carved her way through an art-based education: an undergraduate degree in 1997 and an MA in 2002.

The culmination of this process is Halima’s precociously mature work. Fusing her Asian roots with a fascination for African pattern work and her deep passion for architectural geometry, Halima’s work is intense yet playful, structured yet creative; substantial yet dynamic and invariably compelling in its originality.

"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."

Written by David Coggins

 

Watch a short documentary of Halima here.

  • It is not easy to put into words the effect that Halima Cassell’s remarkable ceramic sculptures have on you when you first encounter a well displayed section of her work
    – Zachary Kingdom

  • 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.
    –

  • 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

  • She set very high standards for herself and was tireless in her efforts to reach them. After just three months she was able to carry out complex, compelling, delicate and dynamic work.
    – Helaine Blumenfeld OBE FRBS Dlitt

  • 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

  • Halima Cassell is a maker of considerable versatility, who has extended her signature work in clay to a range of new materials, including marble, glass and porcelain
    – Andrew Lambirth, Art Critic - Spectator Magazine

  • Working mostly with ‘naked clay’, that is without the use of glaze or slip, Cassell first carefully carves and then smoothes and burnishes to remove any blemishes, so virtually making the surface ‘ disappear’, leaving the form clean and prominent
    – Emmanuel Cooper

  • She was sketching constantly and continually sought to transpose her drawings into sculptural forms. The surface as well as the shapes emerged together in sculpture which often combined enormous complexity with simplicity and unity.
    – Helaine Blumenfeld OBE FRBS Dlitt

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

  • The geometry and the mathematics involved in Halima’s work have the same effect on me as listening to Bach: she manages to get the same essential harmony of shape, form and detail. Her pieces are deeply fashioned, which is unusual in ceramics
    – Eric Knowles (Ceramics Expert)