Biography

Work in Public Collections

  • Reading Museum, Reading
  • Watts Gallery, Guildford
  • V&A, Sculpture Collection, Gallery 21, 2023, London
  • V&A, Ceramic Collection, 2008, London
  • Craft Council Collection
  • Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool
  • Wakefield Council, 2 public art pieces
  • Fitzwilliam Museum
  • Sovereign Asian Arts, Hong Kong
  • Manchester City Art Gallery
  • The Hepworth Wakefield, wall sculpture (acquired through The Jerwood Foundation), 2022
  • The Hepworth Wakefield, 3 prints, 2022
  • The Hepworth Wakefield, installation of 2 sculptures, 2008
  • Her Highness Sheikha Maryam Bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, Abu Dhabi 
  • Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
  • Antony House, National Trust
  • Her Royal Highness Rania Al-Abdullah, Jordan
  • Jerwood Foundation, 3 Sculptures 
  • Leeds Museum & Art Gallery, installation of 3 sculptures
  • Walker Art Gallery and Museum, Liverpool
  • Touchstone Museum & Gallery
  • Higham Hall, Cockermouth, Cumbria, 2 sculptures
  • Dundee Museum and Art Gallery
  • Harris Museum, Preston
  • Shipley Museum and Art Gallery, Gateshead
  • Bolton Museum
  • Gallery Oldham
  • Peter Scott Gallery Trust, Lancaster
  • Toe Gallery, Mumbai, India
  • Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, sculpture, 2005
  • Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Wall sculpture, 2013
  • Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, 5 wallpaper designs, 2019
  • Knowsley Museums and Galleries

Public Art Commissions

  • Oceania Ship, 2023, 2 handcarved concrete sculptures
  • University of Central Lancashire, Preston, outdoor granite wall frieze and granite bookends for seating area
  • 'Light Catcher’ 14'H Oak, celebrating 50 years of the AONB, Forest of Bowland
  • 4 Viking Cruise liners – 4 ceramic wall friezes on Viking, Viking Sea, Viking Sky & Viking Sun Ships
  • P&O Cruise liner Britannia – 4 large bronze sculptures
  • ‘The Flower Dome’ 4'H x 8'Dia - Rampton Hospital/Secure Unit, Art Project, Nottingham
  • ‘Flight of the Osprey' 4'H x 20'W, Fence sculpture and wall-mounted friezes - Arnold Lodge, art project with A.I.M. for the new Rutland Ward, Leicester
  • Azura Cruiser P&O, 26 free-standing clay sculptures and wall-mounted friezes.
  •  ‘Blossom Way’ 8'H x 40'W  - ceramic wall sculpture,  Blackburn (Northgate)
  •  ‘6 gateway sculpture’  2 x (11' x 2'Sq) & 4 x (6'H x 2'Sq), brick clay - Nature Reserve Sculpture Park, Clitheroe Ribble Valley
  •  Designed ‘Paving & Fencing’ -  Barbra Castle Way, Blackburn
  •  ‘Ceramic Wall Tiles Relief’, 4'H x 10'W  - National Wildflower Centre, Liverpool

 

Private Commissions

To date - 2002 - Numerous private commissions for various clients, creating indoor and outdoor sculptures

 

Publications - referencing my work

Halima Cassell 25 - Halima Cassell ISBN: 978-1-5272-5046-8
Dreams Made Manifest - Halima Cassell ISBN 978-0-9539636-4-5
Carved Earth - Ceramic by Halima Cassell ISBN 0-9545563-4-8
‘Light Structures’, Halima Cassell at Blackwell ISBN 978-1-906043-13-1
Fondazione SEM, Halima Cassell Residency in Pietrasanta’, Italy
Araam: Breathing Space - Halima Cassell ISBN 978-0-9567755-1-1
Earth | Atmosphere Ceramic by Halima Cassell ISBN 978-0-9564845-1-2
The Pot Book by Edmund de Waal ISBN 978-0-7148-4799-3
The Workshop Guide to Ceramics by Hudson & Quinn Clay in Art International - K. Tarkasis 05/06 ISBN 1790-6458
Craft & Art of Clay (5th edition) by Laurence King Publishing ISBN-1-9781856697286

 

Reviews, Articles and Features

The Burlington Magazine 2023
Bayt Al Fann Quarterly (Islamic Pattern and Contemporary Perspectives) 2023
Cumbria Life 2023
Alumni Magazine (University of Central Lancashire) 2022
Herefordshire Living 2022
Shropshire Magazine 2021
My Shrewsbury 2021
Mid Wales Journal 2021
Festival (Glyndebourne) 2021
Crafts magazine, September/October 2021 issue, front cover & 8 page write up
Crafts magazine Selected articles/reviews 2005 - present
New Ceramics 2019
Art & Museum 2019
Ceramic Review issue 221 Jan/Feb 2005 - present
Home & Garden Feb 2015
Home & Antiques Nov 2014
Hyperseeing International Society of the Arts, Mathematics & Architecture, Summer 2014
Craft Arts International (Australia) issue 89 2013
The Lancashire of the North West May 2013
Glazed Expressions DACS Magazine issue 68 2011
Art and Architectural Journal 2009
Art and Perception 2009
Keramik Magazine Europa (Germany) issue 30 2008
Taiwan Contemporary Dec/Jan 06/07
Nukta Art (Pakistan) Vol.2 2007
International Gallerie Vol.8 No.1 2005
Big Issue (North) 525 2004
Numerous radio interviews - BBC Radio Lancashire & Asian Network

 

Achievements, Scholarships and Residencies

To Date - 2004 –  Visiting lecturer Nationally and Internationally at Colleges, Universities, Museums, Galleries and at various establishments
2024 - Winner of the Brookfield Craft Award with aquisition of piece for the Craft Council Collection, and solo exhibiton at Brookfield Properties 30 Fenchurch.
2021 - Appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen’s 2021 New Year Honours list, for Services to Art
2021 - Scholarship - Glass Foundry, Stroud - 6 weeks
2018 - Winner of The Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Hong Kong
2018 - Elected Alumni for the University of Central Lancashire, Preston 
2016 – Elected Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculpture (RBS)
2013-14 – Research grants into explorations into concrete, Knowsley Museums and Art Galleries – 6 months
2011 – Scholarship – Brian Mercer Stone Carving residency in Pietrasanta, Italy – 4 months
2011 – Elected Fellowship for the Craft Potters Association (CPA)
2010 – Elected member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors (RBS)
2010 – Honorary Fellow at Blackburn College
2010 – Shortlisted for the BCB Awards “one-off category”
2010 – Tel Hai ceramic symposium in ceramics, Israel - 2 weeks
2009 - Residency in Pakistan - 2 months
2008 - Residency at 20-21 Visual Art Centre - 3 months
2007 - A I M art project, Rampton Secure Hospital, permanent installation - 5 months
2007 - Residency in Fuki, Japan - 11 weeks
2007 – Invited Guest World Contemporary Ceramics 4th Biennale, South Korea
2005 – Creativity Development Award 2005, East Lancashire, Winner
2005 – ART 05, North West, Finalist
2004 – Nominated & highly commended, New Designers, 1 Year On London

Funding and Sponsors

2019 - Art Council Funding (for publication)
2018 - Art Council Funding 
2017 - LEADER grant, European Funding
2000 - 2012 Shaws of Darwen. Darwen, Lancashire
2003 - 2009 – Craft Council & Arts Council Funding
1997 - 2009 - Hansons (Marshalls) Brick, Accrington
2004 - Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery

 

Education

2003 PDQ – Technology for Designer Makers, Manchester City College
2002 MA – Design, University of Central Lancashire
1997 BA (Hons) – 3D Design, University of Central Lancashire
1994 BTEC National Diploma – Art and Design, Blackburn College

 

Artwork can be also purchased at:

Soden Collection, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Joanna Bird Contemporary Collection, London
Bluecoat Display Centre, Liverpool
Castlegate House Gallery, Cockermouth

Venues selling "Halima Cassell 25" publication:
( * venues also selling wall-art pieces)

Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, Museum Street, Blackburn BB1 7AJ
Blackwell, Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria, LA23 3JT
* Bluecoat Display Centre, The Bluecoat, College Lane Entrance, Liverpool, L1 3BZ
* Castlegate House Gallery, Cockermouth, Cumbria, CA13 9HA
Contemporary Ceramics, 63 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London, WC1B 3BF
* Lemon Street Gallery, 13 Lemon Street, Truro, Cornwall, TR1 2LS
Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street,, Manchester, M2 3JL
* Platform Gallery, Station Road, Clitheroe, Lancashire, BB7 2JT
* Saul Hay Gallery, Railway Cottage, Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4LZ
* The Hepworth Wakefield, Gallery Walk, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, WF1 5AW
* The Soden Collection, 80 Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY1 1UT
V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL
* Watts Gallery - Artists' Village, Down Lane, Compton, Surrey, GU3 1DQ
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, Wakefield WF4 4LG
20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Church Square, Scunthorpe DN15 6TA


  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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)

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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