In the studio with… Millie Layton

How long have you been at APT?
Since July last year, I’m here for the year on a studio award with Fenton Art Trust.

Describe APT in three words...
Cyclical, capacious and traditional.

What is your practice and how do you like to work in your studio? 
I make sculptures and drawings. Sculptures which I exhibit and drawings which rarely leave the studio. My drawings are an alphabet for the sculptures. I’m usually fiddling with some kind of material in the studio, trying to make an alternative for an overpriced metal and trying to avoid Jesmonite like the plague. I like materials which bring their own contexts. I was making bioplastics from potato and starch during my time at APT and large sugar works (if the mice didn’t eat them first).

Which artists have influenced you?
Ron Nagle (all time fav), Lilly Van Der Stokker, Liz Larner, Magali Reus, Laure Provoust, Louise Lawler, Nancy Holt, Charlotte Posenenske, Alex Da Corte…….. The list goes on and on

What is the most unusual thing someone might find in your studio?
A mouth former - used by morticians to keep dead bodies mouths closed, they have small grippers in them which stick into the mouth.

 

Scroll down for details of APT Introduces, the joint exhibition Millie Layton is part of with fellow awardee Eleni Zervou.