Whilst Oscars are lavishly plated in 24-carat gold and BAFTA awards are cast from bronze, the victors of this year’s Manchester Open art show instead took home eye-catching pink and orange ceramic sculptures - handmade in the city - to celebrate their winners' status.
For the fourth iteration of the popular biennial exhibition, HOME arts centre commissioned Manchester ceramicist Sam Andrew to design a totally new style of award.
Celebrating the Open’s commitment to creativity and supporting local artists and makers, the distinctive pink and orange wave-shaped prizes were made at Seven Limes Pottery in Ardwick using a painstaking and ancient Japanese method called nerikomi.
With just five of the sculptures in existence - and each bearing the one-of-a-kind variations you see in handmade ceramics - one was presented to each of the category winners at the Manchester Open awards night.
The winners were Fleur Yearsley (HOME Granada Foundation Galleries solo exhibition award), Rio Darwin (Castlefield Gallery Artist Development Award), Florian Houlker (Castlefield Gallery artist development award), Chidimma Urunwa Ikegwuonu (Castlefield Gallery artist development award) and Thomas Christian Bradley (Kate Vokes people's choice award).
Previous Open awards have been created using more traditional metalwork, but this year’s design explores the possibilities of clay through an artisan technique that involves layering different coloured clays to create intricate patterns within the material.
To make the awards, Sam stacked sheets of clay in shades of pink and orange, layering up to 50 pieces into substantial slabs before compressing them by hand.
The awards were fashioned at Seven Limes Pottery, Manchester’s oldest pottery teaching studio, which Sam runs in a railway arch close to Mayfield Park.
The prizes' unusual design draws on Sam's background as a neuropsychologist, incorporating ideas around perception, optical illusion and the brain’s alpha wave.
The layered lines in the clay appear to shift and move depending on the viewer’s perspective, creating an effect that challenges how we interpret what we see, he said
I like the use of layers or lines because they give an optical effect of depth, continued Sam.
Your vision oscillates between perceiving one line as further away than the other. It’s an immediate reminder that what we see is not necessarily the truth, and that we experience the world through our own filter.
Clarissa Corfe, creative producer: visual art at HOME, said:
I’ve been following Sam’s work for a number of years. His unique approach to recycling and his use of discarded clay, alongside his work as director of Seven Limes Pottery, made him an ideal maker for this year’s award.
We wanted the award itself to reflect the spirit of Manchester Open - celebrating creativity, experimentation and artists who are finding new ways to work with materials.
Sam is no stranger to the Manchester Open. He exhibited work in the ceramics category in both 2022 and 2024. In 2024, he created a replacement piece at short notice after his original entry sold for £1,000 shortly before the exhibition opened.
Taking place every two years, Manchester Open is a celebration of artists from across Greater Manchester, welcoming submissions from first-time exhibitors to emerging talent and established professionals.
The 2026 exhibition is the fourth Manchester Open and features work by 420 selected artists from more than 1,500 entries. Artists from all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester are represented, with ages ranging from four to 80.
The exhibition includes work across ceramics, digital and moving image, drawing, print, painting, photography, sculpture and installation, and textiles.
Manchester Open runs at HOME until 6 September 2026.
