Justine Watt graduated with a BA (Hons) in Sculpture from Edinburgh College of Art, where she received the Andrew Grant Award. In 2024, she was awarded the RSA John Kinross Scholarship, the Hope Scott Trust Award, the VAS Flora Wood and Tim Stead Trust Award and was a finalist for Scotland’s Emerging Sculptor Award.
She recently exhibited at the Hidden Door Festival, Dundee Design Festival, and Tatha Gallery.
Working with unwanted everyday objects, her work explores how we might reuse more and throw away less. The laborious processes inherent in her approach, steeped in repetition, renewal and meditative rhythm, evoke echoes of domesticity, the value of labour and timeless rituals of craftsmanship such as the techniques of steam bending and kerfing.
These artworks examine how running away with the circus and not following the artistic path she had originally pursued, has shaped her artistic identity.
‘Once you get sawdust in your eye, it is difficult to get it out’ refers to the sawdust placed within the circus ring and how living a circus life never leaves you.
