Two glass artists become QEST Scholars

Among the 22 grants awarded in the latest round of awards from the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) are two scholarships for glass artists Theo Brooks and Karlyn Sutherland.

Theo Brooks is the 2025 QEST Adrian Blundell Scholar. With support from QEST, he will undertake four advanced courses to refine his hot glass techniques: chandelier making with Fabiano Zanchi, ‘Trick Cups’ with Marc Barreda at The Glass Hub, ‘Sculpting Inside the Bubble’ with Martin Janecký, and a specialist class with Jason Christian and Aya Oki at Tulsa Glassblowing School. These experiences will build his skills in hot sculpting, pattern making, and Venetian techniques, enabling him to develop a new body of sculptural work inspired by his Cypriot heritage and south London roots.

Theo first discovered glass while studying Three-Dimensional Design at UCA Farnham. He went on to work in several UK studios before apprenticing with maestro Simon Moore in hot glass, and later in Paris, France, with Philip Baldwin and Monica Guggisberg in glass cutting. He has since studied for an MFA at Bowling Green State University in the US, held a studio technician role at Temple University in Philadelphia, and exhibited internationally across Europe, the USA, and China. Theo’s practice reimagines ancient Cypriot artefacts in contemporary forms, using the fluidity of glass to explore cultural identity.

Speaking about the award, Theo commented, “Hot glass is unlike any other medium. Its extreme temperatures, radiating heat and glow, combined with its translucency and refractive qualities, give you a world of opportunities to explore. I am lucky to be able to use this material to translate aspects of my cultures. Through QEST, I hope this broadens my ideas and skill sets to continue pushing my practice.”

Karlyn Sutherland receives a QEST Scholarship to advance her kiln-formed glass skills.

Karlyn works primarily with kiln-formed, fused glass. Her practice explores the connection between hand-making and a human sense of place, particularly how light, shadow and atmosphere influence experience and memories of a space. For Karlyn, making is a contemplative process, an essential tool in exploring and strengthening her own relationship with, and understanding of, place.

Drawn to the material for its ability to hold and transform light, Karlyn uses layered planes of translucent, semi-translucent and opaque sheet glass to create subtle optical illusions that suggest depth, folds and surface shifts. Her current series includes wall pieces and furniture prototypes, each one meticulously hand-cut, assembled and kiln-fused. Once cooled, the glass is shaped using hand-held grinding tools and finished by hand on a lapping plate with specialist abrasives to achieve its final surface.

QEST funding will support Karlyn to undertake a short course titled ‘Essence’ and one-to-one training with Jessica Loughlin, an internationally recognised artist known for her minimalist aesthetic and focus on light. Both opportunities will deepen Karlyn’s technical and conceptual approach to kiln-formed glass.

Karlyn explained, “Much of my existing glass-making knowledge and skills have been acquired on an ad hoc basis, and, though they’ve served me well, I feel that I have taken them as far as I can within my current practice. I’m extremely grateful to have received a QEST Scholarship – it’s an invaluable opportunity to gain highly-specific experience and knowledge that will allow me to really push my work forwards in new directions.”

These and all the other grants are made possible through the generous support of QEST’s donors – Trusts and Foundations, Liveries, Royal Warrant-holding companies, organisations, and individuals.

The next QEST grant round will open on 9 July and close on 13 August. Grants are available for education and training, with Scholarships up to £18,000, Emerging Maker grants of up to £10,000, and up to £12,000 towards an apprentice’s salary.

Find out more about QEST here.

Main image: Glass work by Theo Brooks.