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Curatorial essay by Shannon Garson Objects of Desire: Contemporary Clay is about material transforming from a lump of dirt into a myriad of forms. From the belly of a bowl to the gestural marks of an abstract sculpture, there is something seductive about clay; it calls out for human touch. This exhibition showcases ten mid-career ceramic artists from Queensland, from the raw woodfired clay works of Ray Cavill to the refined, delicate porcelain of Anne Mossman. These objects are highlighted and linked by the ephemeral eco installation of artist Tijn Meulendijks; his airy, gravitydefying installation an embodiment of desire. Meulendijks’ installations and Shannon Garson’s exhibition design draw the viewer further and further into the luscious, mysterious, tactile, colourful world of Objects of Desire. Each of the artists in Objects of Desire has pursued their vision to a high level of professionalism. When I was invited to curate an exhibition of Queensland ceramics I wanted to create an exhibition to showcase these wonderful, disparate works that integrated another medium so the ceramics were
in the context of both a ceramic exhibition and conceptual artwork. Objects of Desire uses exhibition design to play with the idea of domestic forms, vessels and sculptures, questioning the distinction made between art and craft while revealing what binds these objects together. As the idea coalesced, I began thinking about the seductiveness of clay and the journey of discovery I’ve been on, from my first intimation that this material was precious when using my Nana’s bone china teacups as a child, through to an understanding of the slippery beauty of raw clay on the potter’s wheel and a revelation into the rugged complexity of the fire-worn surfaces of woodfired pots. I wanted to create an exhibition about the discovery of beauty, to try and capture the confusion of longing that whirls you into a piece of art, pushing and pulling at the senses until you are not sure if you want to touch it, hold it, lick it, have it. Putting porcelain next to woodfired clay, next to lustrous sculpture, creates a thread leading from one to another emphasising the material beauty and conceptual richness of each artwork. 3
If the individual artworks are the ‘objects’ of desire then Meulendijk’s sculpture is an evolving embodiment of desire. Ephemeral and fleeting this sculpture leads the viewer through the exhibition. Alain de Botton speaks about the longing initiated by objects:
While a common reaction to seeing a thing of beauty is to want to buy it, our real desire may be not so much to own what we find beautiful as to lay permanent claim to the inner qualities it embodies.1 The material history of ceramics is inextricably bound to the vessel form, a historical/material connection that builds a conceptual link between contemporary ceramics and domestic life. Ceramic vessels disrupt the haptic barrier formed in the gallery context by inviting touch through implied use. Megan Puls explores the intersection of touch and material in her pierced vessels made from black clay. The surface of these vessels invites touch through their vase form and chocolate colour yet the delicate piercing produces a rough surface with tiny, sharp extrusions. The surface of Puls’ vessels echoes the process by which soft coral polyps create the spiky, protective housing that forms a coral reef. This coral like surface is both attractive and repellent to the human touch creating a sophisticated metaphor for desire. The woodfired pieces of Ray Cavill refer to shapes one might recognise as a shadow refers to the object. These ‘platters’ have been transformed by the firing process from soft, malleable clay into rock, the marks of the fire chasing across their worn surfaces. The beauty of these pieces lies in the contrast between the brutality of the marks of process and the delicacy of the surface on closer inspection. The rewards of studying woodfired works such as these are unexpected: the discovery of delicate marks of nature, the tracery of the flame as it licked the ceramic surface, the web of cracks and pits across this harsh crust. Andrew Bryant also deals in texture, crater glazes breaking and swirling over his spiral 1. de Botton, A 2006, The architecture of happiness, Hamish Hamilton, Camberwell.
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forms. The potter’s wheel is known as a tool for creating tableware; Bryant pushes this technique to create work that encompasses the physical act of throwing pots and uses the wheel as an expressive tool. His spirals remind me of the photos from deep space exploration of galaxies and star clusters spiralling, compelled by gravity to move inexorably outwards. The same force that moves galaxies light years apart is the same force of gravity that spins the clay outward from the potter’s wheel. Jenny Mulcahy uses her textured, ancient-looking sentinels to explore the unknown. These sculptural forms, with their references to ancient buildings and lichen-covered walls, create spaces to explore between the forms as the viewer moves around them. Mulcahy’s work is interactive; the spaces between as important as the forms themselves. By placing her sculptures at eye level Jenny encourages the viewer to walk around them, look through them and see the forms as a way of connecting with the unknown that they guard. Janet Fieldhouse sees her work as an intersection between history and contemporary art. Her works are beautifully crafted; the natural textures of the feathers and twine bringing the smooth, pale porcelain into relief. Both Fieldhouse’s and Bryant’s work connect with the mysterious, referring to symbolic artefacts or religious objects. The desire initiated by their work relates to a human desire to connect with the unknown, to be part of something larger and more mysterious than we can understand. Domestic vessels are bound to the complexity of desire, they trigger the basic, undeniable desire to touch and hold beautifully crafted familiar objects. They are also holders of memories, where layers of intimate interactions build up around simple, useful forms. Drinking vessels are inextricably bound to our domestic rituals. Chiko Jones creates refined teapots that have a homely and familiar quality. I wanted to put these tea sets into the context of a conceptual exhibition to highlight the perfection of Jones’
execution. She has a clarity of purpose; the handles are inviting, the spouts designed for pouring. Jones’ genius lies in her ability to take great skill and create works of great humanity. Rather than forcing us to stand back and admire the technical proficiency of her work, Jones’ tea sets inspire us to imagine these beautiful objects in our own domestic setting or an idealised ‘home’ where there is quiet light, a generous table and a wisp of steam escaping from the spout of a perfectly formed teapot, brewing, ready to pour. Anne Mossman and Mollie Bosworth use the pristine translucence of porcelain and familiar vessel forms to focus on aesthetic and environmental themes. Mossman’s pastel-coloured cups and teapots use the traditional Japanese technique of nerikomi. The resulting tableware has a compelling, fine grained texture and pastel colouring reminiscent of ‘I love you’ lollies. Part of the seductive appeal of these works is that the pattern is not merely on the surface but that the body of the clay is coloured all the way through. Bosworth’s vessels combine the delicacy of porcelain with the subtle shading of printing and photographic processes. In applying a two-dimensional photographic print to a three-dimensional object, Bosworth creates a tension that invites the viewer to interact with the object, prompting a physical interaction such as picking up or turning the pieces around. Each element of Bosworth’s installation connects to the others so a narrative about the evolution of plants, and environment travels through the separate vessels. The story of love, longing and intellectual kinship in the love letters of Judith Wright and Nugget Coombs inspired Pru Morrison to create her beautiful vessels. The long affair between these two was one of intellectual equals, documented by hundreds of letters between the pair as they were separated by geography and by the need to keep their relationship secret. Morrison’s work captures the secrecy and beauty of this relationship through the use of containers, decorated inside and out. Words of love and secrets wind around the
figures and into the jars. Morrison’s surfaces have always been seductive, the bright terra sigliata put down in layers as the drawings shimmer and morph over the surface. Clairy Laurence celebrates life with her Death wreath. Using the wreath motif these amazing artworks explode outwards in an efflorescence of ceramic petals, leaves and golden rays. Laurence’s work captures the conflicting emotions of life in the same way Mexican Day of the Dead artefacts celebrate the fleeting, technicolour joy of living. These wreaths illustrate the eloquence of clay as a material combining memorial and celebration. When inanimate things are working most powerfully, they activate a web of signs and meanings that range from personal memories through to philosophical concepts. When things connect with the basic stories of our culture, stories about family, love or meaningful work, they become bigger than themselves. In thinking about desire, I’ve come across many quotes that characterise desire as a shadowy reflection of something else. In a way I think this is what objects that call to us capture, a longing for something else. Marilynne Robinson says:
To crave and to have areas like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing—the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again.2
2. Robinson, M 2004, Housekeeping, Faber and Faber, London.
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6 Photo by Shannon Garson.
Grace Cochrane
Origins and inf luences by Grace Cochrane Congratulations to Artisan for not only deciding to mount an exhibition of contemporary Queensland studio ceramics, but also to tour it further afield to reach new audiences. Congratulations also to Shannon Garson who bravely agreed to select a theme – and people – from the extensive range of options to consider. While the ability to share information is so easy now, in personal online communication as well as through the websites of organisations such as The Australian Ceramics Association, Ceramic Arts Queensland, Artisan and many others, nothing takes the place of experiencing the actual ‘objects of desire’ themselves. The very challenging process of what Shannon describes as trying ‘to capture the confusion of longing that whirls you into a piece of art’, has resulted in the presentation of some very different approaches through materials, processes, forms and subject matter. Yet within such contrasts, the exhibition feels very cohesive. Why is this? Apart from the fact that these people all work with clay, perhaps one reason is that at the heart of things, they are all serious practitioners
who have spent many years pursuing their particular ideas. And while they clearly understand very well what they are doing, they are obviously open to exploring variations that may lead them further along the way. Each presentation complements the others. This group of artists is part of a contemporary chapter in a long evolution of studio ceramics practice in Queensland, much of which informs the understandings of both current makers and their audiences. Every Australian state has a considerable legacy of examples across industry and art, pleasure and necessity, and Queensland’s story contributes to the whole. From the earliest times of settlement, for example, most towns and cities needed to establish factories to make bricks, tiles and drainpipes, as well as vessels for industrial and domestic use. Often these industries included facilities for making what were known as artwares, with each one evolving recognisable decorative characteristics of motifs and glazes.
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Significant also were those individuals from the early 20th century who were involved in china-painting, as well as others who started making handformed earthenware vessels, often with carved and modelled elements. In Brisbane, a notable figure was woodcarver and potter Lewis J. Harvey, a handbuilder who taught at the Central Technical College in the early 1900s and later established his own school in 1938, influencing a considerable following of potters including Muriel MacDiarmid, Daisy Nosworthy and sculptor Daphne Mayo. Harvey and fourteen of his students were included in the Queensland section of the British Empire Exhibition in London in 1924. The postwar years brought different influences to Queensland in the early stages of what we know as the studio crafts movement. Potter Hatton Beck arrived from Victoria in 1947, having sold his Altimera Pottery in Murrumbeena to his wife Lucy Boyd’s brother, Arthur, and partners, and was to teach at the Central Technical College from 1948 to 1961. Also influential to emerging individual potters were those who established commercial potteries. These included Mervyn Feeney from the 1930s, who entered into partnership with George Sandison, making hand-thrown bread crocks and flowerpots; by 1973 he was making 45,000 articles per week, marketing clay bodies, and selling wheels made in his engineering workshops. Influenced by Feeney, Harry Memmott set up a commercial pottery in 1953, built Dracula gas kilns for stoneware and reputedly the first catenary arch kiln in Australia. Milton Moon, a colleague from army years and today recognised for his significant contribution to studio ceramics, left broadcasting at that time to work with Memmott, having been taught to throw pots by Feeney. Kitty Breeden arrived from the Netherlands in 1952 and, with the help of her father, Jacob, set up the Kitty Art Pottery in 1954, making slip cast and thrown works with incised decoration and applied colours. The Kitty Art Pottery School of Ceramics was to provide training opportunities for new generations from 1963 until 1987. Possibly the first potter in 8
Queensland to work in stoneware, as well as in the Bernard Leach-inspired ‘Anglo-Oriental’ tradition, was Carl McConnell who had been stationed in Brisbane in the 1940s while serving in the United States navy. After continuing his training at the Central Technical College under the GI Bill of Rights, specialising in ceramics and sculpture, he was appointed to teach sculpture there in 1952. He left in 1954 to open a pottery school in Norman Park and his Pinjarra Pottery in 1959, returning to the technical college between 1958 and 1963 to set up a course in stoneware. Milton Moon, by then making thrown forms with expressive decoration, followed him at the college from 1961 to 1969 before moving to Adelaide and becoming immersed in Japanese aesthetic ideals in reference to the Australian landscape. Other important training took place in studio workshops themselves; from the late 1970s Errol Barnes’s Lyrebird Pottery offered training to others and during the 1980s employed about eleven people making three ranges of work. In the meantime, the development of crafts courses as part of teacher training was common in most Australian states in the post-war years, and for some time Kelvin Grove Teachers College was the only one of its kind in Queensland. A leader in arts education from the 1970s was Jeff Shaw, who became head of what became, in 1976, the Kelvin Grove College of Advanced Education (CAE). In the late 1960s Shaw and Carl McConnell, followed by established potter Kevin Grealy in 1974, were also involved in founding what became for a short while, the Barambah Pottery at the Cherbourg Aboriginal settlement, working with local artists such as Mervyn Riley from the Muluridji people. The famous Flying Art School, first known as EastAus Art School, established by Mervyn Moriarty in 1971, took tutors to many regional areas and Kelvin Grove CAE was later to take over its management. One tutor was potter Ian Currie, who set up a correspondence course on stoneware glazes for the School, and is also remembered for his later publications on the subject.
The now legendary ceramic artist, Thancoupie, was a community elder and primary traditional owner of Thaynakwith land north of Weipa on Cape York. The first Indigenous artist to undertake tertiary study in ceramics (at East Sydney Technical College in the 1970s), she was known first as Gloria Fletcher and later took her tribal birth name, Thancoupie (also identified as Thanacoupie or Thanakupi). For most of her career her pots, usually incised with traditional symbols, were gas-fired to stoneware temperatures at her home at Trinity Beach, near Cairns, before she returned to Weipa in the 2000s. Along with the steadily growing numbers of Queensland-born practitioners, over the years a number of other significant potters also chose to live there. In 1981, for example, internationally-known Gwyn Hanssen Pigott moved from Adelaide to Brisbane, becoming a resident potter at the Kelvin Grove campus of what is now the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and moved north to Netherdale in 1989, before returning to establish a long-term studio in Ipswich in 2000.
the Arts – all offering exciting new funding opportunities. Associated with these developments was the establishment of commercial galleries in most state centres, which consistently supported ceramics, often within their broader exhibition range. The Queensland Potters Gallery and the Victor Mace Gallery in Brisbane were two that exhibited ceramic works from this time into the 2000s, alongside the Ray Hughes Gallery, first known as Gallery 1Eleven from 1969, and which opened a second venue in Sydney in 1985. Also significant in Queensland has been the support of many city and regional councils, which have funded influential regional galleries as well as artistrun spaces. During these years, changes started to occur in education throughout Australia, which also affected teaching institutions in this state. By the late 1970s, technical education was redefined into colleges of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) and, into the 2000s, TAFE certificate and diploma courses throughout Queensland provided strong ceramics training and experience. Some of these, along with teachers colleges, were to become Colleges or Institutes of Advanced Education and continued to offer ceramics in their diploma and degree programs. By the 1990s most of these institutions were to be eventually absorbed into the universities we know today.
by the 1970s, around a strong statewide presence of potters, a supportive infrastructure was evolving.
By the 1970s, around a strong state-wide presence of potters, a supportive infrastructure was evolving. The Queensland Potters Association, now Ceramic Arts Queensland, was established in 1968, joining other state and regional organisations following the founding of the Potters Society of Australia in 1956. In 1970, the Craft Association of Queensland, now Artisan, was formed, along with related state organisations between 1964 and 1970 and the Crafts Council of Australia in 1971. A Directorate of Cultural Activities, known today as Arts Queensland, was set up in the late 1960s, as were other state funding bodies in the early 1970s and, in 1973, the Australia Council for
Meanwhile, state and regional public galleries and museums became further established throughout Queensland, many including ceramics in their collections. A number of awards were instituted, such as the Gold Coast Ceramic Award in 1982; the North Queensland Ceramic Award at the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in Townsville from 9
1983; the Darling Downs National Acquisitive Ceramics Award in Toowoomba in 1984 – and many more. Ceramics organisations established a schedule of regular conferences within Australia, including ‘Verge’, the 11th National Ceramics Conference in Brisbane in 2006, and the forthcoming ‘Smoke on the Water’ Australian Woodfire conference being organised by Rowley Drysdale and others in Cooroy for 2017. Many participants have also been invited to, or have chosen to attend, similar events overseas. So what kind of world do the exhibitors in Objects of Desire inhabit today? They have many professional contemporaries throughout Queensland, across Australia and overseas. The last thirty years have seen even more changes to the notion of what ceramic practice can be, with an increase in the diversity of subjects, forming processes and decoration – often returning to re-explore earlier methods, and sometimes introducing new materials and technologies. For much of this time craftspeople pursued an ‘art’ ideal, where they wanted the status of artists, arguing that interests in skills, function and form, materials and ceramic culture are quite compatible with conceptual ideas and imagination. From the 1990s, partly associated with the desire to achieve sustainable practices, an interest in ‘design’ ideals also reappeared, where evidence of the handmade became an important aspect of items such as bespoke restaurant tableware, and makers often developed complementary practices between one-off and production. At the same time, a number of ceramic practitioners have carried out
major public artworks. In the last decade the desire to make things by hand has widened even more, so that activities now reach across the spectrum from amateur DIY projects, often internet-based, to the renewal of interest by designers and architects in designing with an understanding of materials and the recent ‘discovery’ of ceramics by members of the wider artworld. However, despite this acknowledged and growing worldwide interest in the values of the handmade, including those of ceramic practice, across Australia educational and teaching opportunities for ‘hands-on’ subjects in TAFE colleges and universities have sharply declined in the last decade, as fees increase and institutions are forced to cut staff and technical support costs. An enterprising collaboration between the University of Canberra and the Nambour campus of East Coast TAFE will see a now rare Bachelor of Visual Arts: Ceramics degree offered in 2017. At the same time, funding bodies have equally pruned their grant programs to meet reduced government allocations.
ideas and relationships to particular materials and processes reflect strong and varied connections with different environments, influences and cultural histories.
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How have craftspeople reacted? In typically resourceful responses, they have again opened up their own studios to take students and interns into classes, workshops and extended courses. Ray Cavill’s Clayschool in Brisbane’s West End is one such initiative, and the community organisation, Ceramic Centre for Excellence, supported by Noosa Council at the Cooroy Butter Factory, is another. Across the state, innovative groups are sharing workshop facilities; the now few established commercial galleries are being replaced
by short-term rental of spaces for exhibitions, often as pop-ups; and individuals are becoming more involved in attending markets. Potters organisations are expanding their provision of information, opportunities and comment both in print and online, while those like Artisan embark on exhibition programs such as this one. From these many origins and influences, artists in Objects of Desire have been drawn from across Queensland – from Brisbane to Kuranda, the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, Magnetic Island, Cairns and the Torres Strait. Some were trained in Queensland; others, including one from Japan, started out elsewhere but have chosen to move there. In consequence, their sources of ideas and relationships to particular materials and processes reflect strong and varied connections with different environments, influences and cultural histories. Moreover, extending this experience and in association with the ceramic works, is the surrounding
installation based on botanical forms and plant materials by Netherlands-born Tijn Meulendijks, who is equally concerned, in his own way, with understanding selected materials and developing ideas for his work through interacting with them. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to see this exhibition of works by such imaginative and able professional people. I believe that, combined with the published insights into what each maker was thinking about and hoping to convey, as well as Shannon Garson’s observations about what she was seeking in bringing it together, Objects of Desire: Contemporary Clay will provide a rewarding experience for its audiences. Grace Cochrane AM, is an independent curator, writer and consultant. She has been associated with craftspeople for over 40 years, and is the author of The crafts movement in Australia: a history (UNSW Press 1992) and many other publications.
Photos by Shannon Garson.
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Mollie Bosworth, Gondawana timeline series, 2016. Porcelain. Photo by Jaala Alex.
Mollie Bosworth is best known for her wheel-thrown porcelain vessels that explore the interplay between pattern and transparency. A long-time resident of Northern Queensland, she often uses Australiana motifs, particularly tropical and native flora. Bosworth’s work evolves intuitively from explorations of the inherent visual and tactile qualities of porcelain and the making processes. Luminosity and fragility are particular qualities that are explored in her work. Her pieces are often enhanced by smooth, tactile polished surfaces and illustrate an interplay between pattern and light, interior and exterior. Bosworth is interested in the connections between heritage species and their more familiar decedents. Her recent work embodies subtle commentary on origin, endurance and
preservation. She uses digital technology to capture and manipulate her motifs before printing them onto decals that are directly applied to porcelain. After high firing, the images turn sepia, the colour of iron. Layered pictorial and textural elements give Bosworth’s finished pieces depth and movement, echoing the visual intensity of a rainforest and when held up to the light, mimicking the effect of sunlight filtering through a dense, quivering canopy. Bosworth has been a practicing ceramicist for over 25 years. She completed a Diploma of Art (Ceramics) at Australian National University in 2003, and her work is held in public collections across Australia.
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Using little more than the basic elements of earth, water and fire, Andrew Bryant seeks to marry the visual language of the physical environment with human communication. His ceramics are heavily informed by natural topography, specifically the sandstone and granite rock formations that characterise the shoreline of his home on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Bryant is drawn to the energising qualities of ancient, organic forms. He reiterates their power by casting them into permanence using a combination of paper clays, grogged clays and porcelain. These objects often possess an aerated, porous surface quality that gives them the impression of having been hewn from the earth or moulded by erosion. Colourings reminiscent of oxidising metals add to the impression of time passing. 14
Shapes range from hand-formed helixes to deconstructed cylinders and platters that reflect a curiosity with the inner anatomy of figurative ceramics. Much of the texture Bryant achieves in his work can be attributed to ongoing experimentations with different firing environments and primitive techniques, including raku. Bryant graduated from Latrobe University in Bendigo with a Degree in Ceramics in 1993 and has lectured at TAFE Queensland for more than two decades. He is a two-time recipient of the Open Award in the National Ignition Ceramic Competition.
Photos by Shannon Garson.
Andrew Bryant, Nature spiral 3, 2015. High fired stoneware clay, crater glaze with copper overspray. Photo by Jaala Alex.
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Ray Cavill, Thin edge of the wedge, 2015. Rocky road clay—extended wood fire. Photo by Jaala Alex.
Seeking to distil his sculptural practice down to its most essential elements, Ray Cavill has chosen to concentrate on wood-fired clay. He uses rustic materials and methods to create solid, imposing forms that convey a desire to disrupt normalised patterns of mass consumption. Cavill views each individual person as the visual curator of their own existence and is fascinated by objects and the influence they possess. He often references the subconscious processes that power our decisions to acquire, display, use and dispose of ‘things’, reflecting on both their aesthetic and functional value.
of the machine-made aesthetic. This is underscored by the self-imposed limitations he has placed on his practice and the enjoyment he derives from the pursuit of an illusory perfection. Strong in form and complex in surface, Cavill’s sculptures display a visual record of their own creation. His relationship with the handmade extends to an interest in traditional kilns designs; he has been involved in building salt kilns and Japanese anagama wood-fire kilns for clients and institutions across Australia. Cavill has qualifications in both education and visual arts, and currently runs Clayschool in Brisbane’s West End.
Cavill’s indulgence in the handmade process of clay work is itself a response to throw-away culture and the predictability 17
Janet Fieldhouse uses porcelain and clay as mediums to express her Torres Strait Islander heritage. She channels forgotten and living customs, material culture and ritual into the tangible form of pottery, forging vessels that act as transmitters of knowledge. Fieldhouse views her work as a contemporary manifestation of an ancient culture. She describes the process as something she pursues mainly for self-fulfilment, but also acknowledges the educational value of her experiential objects. Unambiguous references to cultural forms that are endemic to the Strait – including dance, costume and traditional scarification (tattooing) – can be found throughout her work, most notably in emblems and insignia. Some of Fieldhouse’s best18
known pieces are ceramic recreations using Torres Strait Islander basket weaving techniques rendered in porcelain. Scaled and exaggerated, these forms cast the technique and skill involved in basket weaving in a new light. From her home in Cairns, Fieldhouse regularly travels back to the Torres Strait to visit relatives and find new inspiration for her work. She often incorporates mixed media including fibres and shells into her sculptures. Fieldhouse has twice been awarded First Prize in the Indigenous Ceramic Art Awards. Her work is held in collections across the country, including at the National Gallery of Australia.
Janet Fieldhouse, Bride pendant series 5, 2015. Mid fire porcelain, feathers, string and shells. Photo by Jaala Alex.
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Chiko Jones, Green teapot and cups, 2016. Porcelain. Photo by Jaala Alex.
Japanese-born Chizuko (Chiko) Jones makes familiar, utilitarian ceramics that invoke solace and visual contentment in the viewer – a sensation analogous to the pleasure she herself derives from the process of her meticulous clay work. Having studied under a master Chinese potter in Hong Kong before relocating to Australia, Jones’ is a truly international practice. Jones specialises in the labour-intensive nerikome technique, which was originally popularised in her home country. The rational, streamlined forms of Jones’ functional tea sets allude to the highly choreographed rituals of chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony.
Jones’ forms are often modest and softly-spoken; acquiescent objects that yield to their practical function. Monochromatic vessels finished in high-gloss are marked only with gentle striations that amplify their iridescence by reflecting the light. Other designs are ornamented with vividly coloured nerikome inlay. Jones holds a Diploma of Art (Ceramics) from Australian National University and has exhibited widely throughout Australia since the late 1990s.
Photos by Jaala Alex.
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Eccentricity characterises the ceramic work of Clairy Laurence. Best known for her figurative statuettes, she uses a combination of hand-building and wheel-throwing techniques to give life to her quixotic, spirited characters. Laurence depicts a world occupied by allegory, myth and symbolism, and cites architect Antoni Gaudi, Australian painter Charles Blackman and graphic artist Rex Ray among her influences. Her signature ceramic figurines pay a twisted homage to both fetish objects and family heirlooms. Overtly feminine and surreal, Laurence’s wide-eyed and dainty forms – always with a hint of the sinister or subversive – possess individual personalities that are steeped in fable and fantasy. 22
Favouring muted saccharines and high-gloss hard blacks and lustres, Laurence’s use of colour amplifies the interfaces between life and death, good and evil that characterise her work. Floral and leaf motifs – symbolic of rebirth and renewal – represent her foray into more improvised forms that reflect the unpredictable shapes found in nature. These symbols appear in various scales across her work, and form the structural basis of her ceramic tableware. Laurence obtained qualifications in studio ceramics and art therapy before opening her own studio, Amfora Gallery, in Brisbane. She is a fixture of the city’s pottery scene, having exhibited widely in group shows since she started her fulltime freelance career in 2013.
Photos by Shannon Garson.
Clairy Laurence, Death wreath 1, 2016. Stoneware and mixed media. Photo by Jaala Alex.
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Seed to Seed—a collaboration by Tijn Meulendijks and painter Claudine Marzik, 2012 (detail) Photo by Tijn Meulendijks and Michael Marzik.
Tijn Meulendijks is best-known for his large-scale, immersive installations that reinterpret and recreate a natural environment within the gallery space. He approaches his work with the dual scientific/aesthete mindset of a botanist-cum-artist. Meulendijks obtained a Masters Degree in Floral Design in Hertogenbosch, Netherlands before migrating to Far North Queensland in 2004. He has cultivated a lifelong interest in botany, collecting and documenting plant remnants, soil, seeds, species of vegetation and other organic materials to use in his installations and works on paper. A meticulous recreation of the elaborate, often haphazard compositions found in nature, his novel arrangements isolate, transplant and reposition organic elements to provoke a sensory
experience in the viewer. Meulendijks simultaneously shows great restraint and a respect for his materials by methodically preserving them and allowing their natural forms to guide his creative process. Vegetative sculptures transform the gallery space by redefining its proportions or rerouting the movement of people. By positioning organic elements as art objects, Meulendijks calls into question the very nature of creativity. His installations are often ephemeral in the same way the environment is vulnerable to human interference. Meulendijks has exhibited in the Netherlands and extensively across Northern Queensland.
Photos by Tijn Meulendijks and Michael Marzik.
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Pru Morrison’s ceramic art provokes an open-ended dialogue about everyday life in Australia. Witty, laconic and rich with intertextual references, her work is often thematically centred on specific events, issues or historical characters. Morrison is a multidisciplinary artist who also practices etching, painting and drawing – artistic expressions that all exert some influence over her ceramics. She makes use of a variety of moulds and hand-building techniques to create clay objects that resemble utilitarian objects, each with its own uncanny quirk. Morrison’s understated porcelain vessels often feature detailed hand-painted designs. Her bolder forms are 26
made by layering different coloured clay slips in the terra sigillata style before scratching through the strata to draw an image out from the clay body through to the surface. She sometimes uses this technique to incorporate engaging language into her work by hand-scratching short passages of text. Morrison’s aesthetic is characterised by brilliant colours; a tactic she employs to create visually alluring pieces that invite contemplation and conversation. She often uses black underglaze pencil and clear underglaze to coat the interior of a piece to improve its functionality. Morrison is the recipient of a Rockhampton Ergon Energy Award and Cairns William Graham Carmen Award.
Photos by Shannon Garson.
Pru Morrison, Excerpt from ‘Our love is so natural’ by Judith Wright (working sketch), 2016. Oil crayons on paper. Photo by Jaala Alex.
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Anne Mossman, Teapot, 2016. Coloured porcelain. Photo by Jaala Alex.
Anne Mossman employs Japanese nerikomi techniques to achieve an intricate marbling of different coloured clays. In Mossman’s work, pattern elements often form a structural part of the clay body, not just a topical embellishment. She favours the random nature of the nerikomi technique because it involves an element of surprise for the maker and provokes a sense of wonderment in the viewer. This parallels her interest in nature’s unpredictability. Mossman often takes her visual cues from Queensland’s Gold Coast hinterland. Vessels might be carved in lace-like patterns and paper-thin, pierced ewers emulate the patterns found on leaves, seeds and in stony tracts. Her inlay and nerikomi works use the colours of native and exotic shrubs, and borrow their formal qualities from sticks, leaves and organic detritus.
Mossman develops her palettes by hand-staining white porcelain to various colour saturations in her studio. The aquiline curves characteristic of her work emphasise subtle changes in tone and showcase the organic contours of the clay laminations. She often slices and shapes slabs of nerikomi to form bases, rims and handles for beakers and other functional objects. Mossman graduated from Australian National University with a Diploma of Art (Ceramics) in 2007. She is an active member of the Gold Coast Potters Association where she teaches workshops on nerikomi and other techniques.
Photos by Shannon Garson.
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Jennifer Mulcahy is fascinated by processes of decay. The surface quality of her ceramics references the gradual transformation from hard to soft, inorganic to organic, that occurs when manmade structures such as derelict buildings are broken down and returned to the earth. Mulcahy is also attracted to emergent spaces: crevices in the plasterwork opened up for mosses and lichens, partitions between tall buildings on a city skyline, fissures in rock and soil. These intervals available in nature and urban environments amplify contrasts of texture and mood. For this reason, her monolithic ceramics are best perceived in relation to one another in order to appreciate her use of void and non-space. 30
In 1984, Mulcahy moved to Magnetic Island off the Tropical North Queensland coast where she established the Nelly Bay Pottery Studio & Gallery. She is responsible for a number of large-scale public art pieces that can be seen throughout the Townsville area. Mulcahy often blends Perlite, sawdust and cellulose fibre into her clay body to add both texture and green strength to her larger works. Site-specific, found objects such as rusty metal bolts and gang nails are frequently included in her work. Mulcahy holds a PhD in Creative Arts from James Cook University. She has participated in international artist residencies in Canada and Wales, and has been recognised with grants from Arts Queensland and Townsville City Council.
Jenny Mulcahy, Sistere #1 (view 1), 2015. Ceramic. Photo courtesy of artist.
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Megan Puls, Mangrove series #1-10, 2016. Scarva stoneware clay. Photo by Jaala Alex.
Often experimenting with proportion and scale, Megan Puls uses textural and material juxtapositions to convey transitions in the natural environment. She is inspired by dynamic ecosystems and shifting landscapes, particularly the marshy wetlands found near her home on Queensland’s Gold Coast. Puls rarely creates objects in isolation, but rather presents pairings or clusters of complementary ceramics. Her 2004 Josephine Ulrick Ceramic Award-winning piece was a collection of 70 grouped vessels. A plurality of forms is used to reflect different, interrelated facets of the wetlands: wave, sand, mangrove, silt. Puls’ distinctive forms include nesting
vessels folded in voluminous waves to mimic swell patterns, suspended assemblages and hollow, tubular ceramics. Puls is well-known for her wheel-thrown Scarva clay pieces that are heavily pierced. Her designs are inspired by both air bubbling to the surface of water and the intricate sand markings made by crabs. Puls often works with a mixture of Southern Ice porcelain and recycled clay, using the gradation from one material to the next to imitate tidal markings. Other vessels incorporate indigo marbling, further emphasising her affinity with water. She describes the delicacy of her ceramics as an allusion to the fragility of these wetland ecosystems.
Photos by Shannon Garson.
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Photo by Shannon Garson.
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Artisan is Queensland’s Centre for Craft and Design. We are a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the presentation and advancement of authentic and innovative craft and design practice. Artisan presents, promotes and celebrates excellence in craftsmanship and design. Our commitment and passion comes to life in our vibrant, high-quality exhibitions both in Gallery Artisan and on tour. We support design creatives from emerging talent to living legends and thrive on our collaboration with artisans and designers from across Australia and the world. We develop and launch local talent in the global marketplace and bring the finest international craft and design to Australians. Our vision is to represent excellent and desirable contemporary Australian craft and design. www.artisan.org.au
© Copyright 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical (including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system), without permission from the publisher. Published by Artisan 381 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley QLD 4006 Australia ISBN: 978-0-9871226-9-8 Published on the occasion of the exhibition Objects of Desire: Contemporary Clay, shown at Artisan from 13 September – 19 November 2016. Catalogue design by Chenoa Pettrup Objects of Desire identity designed by Chenoa Pettrup Catalogue artist biographies by Emily Lush
Artisan is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, the Australia Council, the Commonwealth Government’s Arts Funding and Advisory Body and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments.
Objects of Desire is supported by The Australia Ceramics Association and Vivien Anderson Gallery, and the Visions regional touring program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to cultural material for all Australians.
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