© the artist. Photo credit: York Museums Trust
Ceramic artist and teacher, born in Gillingham, Kent, who gained her diploma in ceramics with distinction at Medway College of Art & Design, 1984–6; her higher national diploma there, with distinction, 1986–8; and her master’s degree in ceramics, with distinction, 1988–90. In 1990–1, Halls gained a six-month residency at Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta, Canada. Teaching included Royal College of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, and Staffordshire, Manchester Metropolitan and Wolverhampton Universities.
Among Halls’ awards and commissions were one from Kent County Council for a ceramic mural for the County Hall at Maidstone, 1988–9; first prize winner, Campbell’s Soup Tureen Design Project (the Toad tureen is in Campbell’s Museum Collection, in America), 1989; and a commission for a life-size figure for Christie Cancer Hospital, Manchester, 1994–5. Showed annually with SWLA at Mall Galleries from 1989; The Decorative Beast, Crafts Council, 1990; Colours of the Earth, British Council tour of India, 1992; Ceramic Contemporaries, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1993; and Lynne Strover Gallery, Fen Ditton, 1997. Had a first solo exhibition at Andrew Usiskin Contemporary Art, 1992. Victoria & Albert Museum, Contemporary Art Society and The Sackler Foundation hold examples.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
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