Calum Dawes

Ceramics & Glass (MA)
A man in an orange shirt with a red baseball cap leaning over artwork looking up at the camera. The artwork is glass bugs on a steel backing in a wooden frame.
A collection of bugs crafted from glass on a steel backing in a wooden frame.
A collection of bugs crafted from glass on a steel backing in a wooden frame.
Imago Minerals, 2025, 51cm x 32cm x 11cm, Flameworked, Glass, Steel, Beech, Brass, 18k Gold Lustre
A close up of a glass bug. It's a stag beetle with gilded areas.
A close up of a glass bug. It's a stag beetle with gilded areas.
Detail of Imago Minerals, 2025, 51cm x 32cm x 11cm, Flameworked, Glass, Steel, Beech, Brass, 18k Gold Lustre
Many Black Glass stones with silver point illustration spanning the length of them.
Many Black Glass stones with silver point illustration spanning the length of them.
Alluvial Trace, 2025, 101cm x 34cm x 11cm, Flameworked and silverpoint, Glass, Silver, Steel, Elm, Brass
A collection of glass curiosities (a beetle in pieces, several smaller bugs, some seeds, stones and a mouse skeleton) on a steel backing in a wooden frame.
A collection of glass curiosities (a beetle in pieces, several smaller bugs, some seeds, stones and a mouse skeleton) on a steel backing in a wooden frame.
Fascination, 2024, 45cm x 26cm x 6.5cm, Flameworked, Glass, Steel, Elm, Brass
A collection of bugs crafted from glass on a steel backing in a wooden frame.
A close up of a glass bug. It's a stag beetle with gilded areas.
Many Black Glass stones with silver point illustration spanning the length of them.
A collection of glass curiosities (a beetle in pieces, several smaller bugs, some seeds, stones and a mouse skeleton) on a steel backing in a wooden frame.

About

Biography

Calum Dawes (b. 1994, Manchester) is a multidisciplinary artist working in hot glass, lampworking and illustration. His practice explores how we interact with the natural world and with the made object through his fascination with process and materiality. Much like the museums and collections he studies, Calum’s work is evidence of hard work and dedication to skill. 

Calum holds a First Class degree in BA(Hons) Glass and Ceramics from the University of Sunderland, graduating in 2019. Most recently he has completed a MA in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art in London. Calum was generously supported in his MA studies by the Märit Rausing Scholarship in Ceramics and Glass and was shortlisted for the Jaguar Arts Award.

Artist Statement

Calum Dawes is an artist creating sculptural work primarily with glass, using his medium to explore his interest in the structures of the natural world, the made object, mythological worlds, and the methods of storytelling which link them to us.

Through the language of museological collection and display, he hopes to make objects which fascinate and invite inspection. Creating artifacts which allow him to take part in the legacy of collection and the ordering of things, which he has always found irresistible. These objects also form a record of his own fascination, practice and joy in making. He works to distill the obsessive and imaginative spirit of the collection, the collector and the maker.

Calum makes intricate works that push the boundaries of what glass as a material can do; how fine it can be drawn and how delicately it can be assembled, referencing tradition while exploring the miniaturisation of technique.

By investigating, through glassmaking, how fictioning, exaggeration and replication can be used for storytelling and worldbuilding in the context of collection, examination and museology, he explores how the visual language of these fields can be used to draw the audience in and engage them with familiar context but unfamiliar content.

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