INTERVIEW: North East Emerging Artist Award

Image: Kiik Amor by Rae Tait

Seaton Delaval Hall continues to champion up and coming artists with the latest instalment of their inspirational North East Emerging Artist Award. 2025’s winners – Kiik Amor, Phoebe Scott and Lucy Walters – have been inspired by elements of the historic National Trust property to create the work on show, with the exhibition running from Saturday 6th September to Sunday 19th October.

All three artists have created exhibitions that vary in terms of the mediums used. Phoebe Scott has created a self-described ‘big wig’. “It’s made of a mixture of old wigs, discarded wool, feathers, nettle fibres and nettle cordage. I wanted to use these materials as it changes the expectation of an opulent flamboyance wig using more humble and affordable materials. I’m interested in the tension between the everyday and the otherworldly, and how this interplay can reveal deeper narratives about self-expression, beauty, and desire.”

Image: Lucy Waters (c) National Trust Bec Hughes, House of Hues

Lucy Walters’ exhibition is made from crockery. “I go to local charity shops across the North East and source a range of plain ceramic objects and repurpose them, through entirely hand-painting each and every piece.” While Kiik Amor has used experimental design in their work, incorporating fantasy storytelling and metaphysical systems to create a sculpture made from metals and latex. It also serves as a sound installation: “Sound allows me to bypass language and reach directly into emotion, sensation and space.”

Each of the three exhibitions are underpinned by social messages: feminism, classism and inclusivity

Each of the artists have expressed a dedication to the region and the venue in their artwork. Phoebe was inspired by the “mischief, theatricality and flamboyance” of Seaton Delaval Hall, while Kiik was drawn to figures like Elizabeth Delaval, whose portrait at Seaton Delaval Hall inspired their project, The Lyre of Elysium: “which reimagines her as a spectral muse and oracle in a historically patriarchal system.” Lucy’s work is also committed to the region, and examines the socio-political/economic scope of the North East. Her 52-piece crockery collection titled Delaval Ware responds entirely to the history of The Hall and the Delaval Family who once lived there.

Each of the three exhibitions are underpinned by social messages: feminism, classism and inclusivity. “I want the Big Wig to give a satirising look on the absurdity of wealth, power and social class,” says Phoebe Scott. “Historically wigs were a symbol of elite status and indulgence. I made the wig comically large to expose the ridiculousness of such displays of status. It’s a self-aware parody. How class and wealth have always relied on performance and artifice, and to find humour in that, but also perhaps discomfort.”

Kiik’s work aims to “offer sanctuary to those who exist between definitions, who are shaped by multiplicity, contradiction, or transformation. There’s often a sense of refuge in my work, I generate spaces where difference becomes sacred. I hope to evoke empathy beyond human experience.”

Image: Pheobe Scott

Lucy’s work is motivated by feminism: “I imagined myself to have been commissioned by the eldest daughter of the infamous family line of Delaval children, Rhoda Delaval – some of her artwork was attributed to more well-known male artists of the time, and in response to this, I have designed a collection exclusively for the Delaval Women to allow for their accounts to be reconsidered within a contemporary lens, using text to highlight the ludicrousness of such socio-politically derived language.”