Annie Higgins is an artist metalsmith from South Wales. Her work stems from a long practice of life drawing. Whilst searching for a sculptural medium for these drawings, Annie took a blacksmithing taster day and instantly recognised the bodily forms she was chasing in the surprising squish of hot metal. She went on to study BA (Hons) Artist Blacksmithing at Hereford College of Arts, received a scholarship for Pennsylvania’s Center for Metal Arts’ Forging Focus workshop, and took further training with professional smiths, before joining Birmingham City University’s School of Jewellery in 2023 as Artist in Residence. In Birmingham, Annie’s practice exploded in complexity into non-ferrous metalwork, practice-based research, and facilitating community workshops. She has recently completed a 10-month postgraduate course at Bishopsland Educational Trust – and won the award for Excellence in Silversmithing – and is now undertaking a practice-based PhD to deepen and solidify her conviction in a shared materiality between body and metal.

Annie’s collection Body Works began as a pile of life drawings, cut up into fragments of bodies and rearranged into ambiguous, fleshy forms. The collection explores how the same dimples, creases and cheeks that run through these collages appear naturally as metal is worked. From forged steel to hand-raised silver vessels, each piece is formed through a cyclical process of heating and working which, like a muscle, relaxes and contracts the metal. By mediating the secret squish, tensions and resistances that run deep through this lively material, forms appear that mirror the folds of flesh around a joint, the fragile string of a tendon, or the soft wrinkle of skin. This collection of rich and tactile objects appears as fragments of living material; they invite touch and provide an intimate understanding of the materiality shared between metal and body.