Each quarter, we introduce you to the makers and awardees who have taken up studios spaces over the last few months in our NEW FACES Journal series. 11 new makers have joined the Cockpit community at the tail end of 2025 – here are the NEW FACES you need to know in the new year.
Be sure to check out their maker profiles, subscribe to their mailing lists, and follow them on social media.
Barbara is a ceramic artist whose practice explores transformation over time. She examines how physical environments and human societies continually reshape one another, working across intimate and expansive scales. Often beginning with scientific or environmental data, Barbara translates complex issues into minimal ceramic forms that make them more accessible and emotionally resonant.
Visit Barbara in Studio E2R in Bloomsbury.
Gemma Smale joined Cockpit on the 2025 Make It Award. She is a ceramicist specialising in wood-fired ceramics, exploring the relationship between material and traditional firing techniques. She holds a BA in Ceramic Design from Central Saint Martins and has worked alongside makers like Michel Francois, Emma Lacey, and Akira Satake. Working on the wheel and by hand, Gemma creates decorative and sculptural pieces, with a practice focused on surface development and the interaction of flame and kiln atmosphere.
Visit Gemma in Studio 201 in Deptford.
Grace Willsmer joined Cockpit on the 2025 Leathersellers’ Award. They are a multiple award-winning craft leatherworker whose practice uses traditional hand skills to create beautifully detailed leather objects, from saddlery and harness to footwear and costume. Inspired by the Arts & Crafts movement, Grace’s work is led by material qualities and making processes, with form and decoration emerging through craft.
Visit Grace in Studio 309 in Deptford.
Neve Beill joined Cockpit on the 2025 Make It Award. She is a ceramic artist whose practice is shaped by early experiences growing up between London and the Isle of Wight, where she developed a fascination with the tactile qualities of local clay. She holds a BA in Product and Furniture Design from Chelsea College of Arts. Neve’s practice revolves around exploration and experimentation, using wild clay and a range of waste materials to create unique objects.
Ömer Öner is a London-based ceramic artist working with found objects and everyday fragments. Using mould-making and slip-casting, he transforms materials collected from the street into porcelain pieces that sit between function and sculpture, reflecting an interest in change, reuse, and clay’s long history of reinterpretation.
Visit Ömer in Studio E16 in Bloomsbury.
Ranti Ehinmola joined Cockpit on the 2025 Haberdashers’ Award. She is a self-taught knitwear designer and fibre artist with a background in architecture. Her work focuses on shape, texture, and craftsmanship, exploring the full potential of hand-knitting through playful yet considered design. A graduate of the Royal College of Art, Ranti creates both wearable pieces and hand-knitting patterns, with an emphasis on local materials, accessible making, and the value of process as much as the final result.
Visit Ranti in Studio 212 in Deptford.
Sofi Chetrar joined Cockpit on the 2025 Make It Award. She is a womenswear designer creating one-of-a-kind pieces rooted in her Moldovan heritage. Her work blends traditional motifs, hand-dyed textiles, and contemporary techniques to reinterpret folk embroidery, home sewing culture, and menswear details. Working with dead stock materials and artefacts sourced from Moldovan flea markets, Sofi combines digital processes with handcraft inspired by her grandmother’s pattern drawings.
Visit Sofi in Studio 209 in Deptford.
Suzanna James is a sustainable textile artist, writer, and educator originally from South Wales. Her practice centres on hand embroidery, developing lace-like structures through innovative pulled-thread techniques. By creating absences and presences within woven fabrics, Suzanna explores textiles as language, using cloth as a means of expression and communication.
Visit Suzanna in Studio E14 in Bloomsbury.
Vicky Streater joined Cockpit on the 2025 Dyers’ Company Award. Vicky is a textile artist, dyer, pattern designer, and knitter who hand dyes sustainable cashmere yarns using botanical and acid dyes, and designs patterns that play with light and shadow. Based in Wimbledon, her inspiration comes from daily walks on the Common.
Visit Vicky in Studio E2M in Bloomsbury.
Yanxiong Lin joined Cockpit on the 2025 Arts Scholars Charitable Trust Bursary. He is an artist-maker creating sculptural objects and furniture that sit between tradition and modern life. His work draws on personal experience and cultural heritage, combining craftsmanship with a contemporary sensibility. Based between London and Shanghai, Yanxiong explores how materials and forms can carry ideas from the past while pointing toward new possibilities.
Visit Yanxiong in Studio 202 in Deptford.
Read our NEW FACES Journal series here.
Explore the complete directory of Cockpit makers here.
