L&K - MUCH IN COMMON: NOTHING ALIKE

MUCH IN COMMON NOTHING ALIKE

MUCH IN COMMON NOTHING ALIKE

26 MAY – 15 JUNE 2023

Officially opened by: Colin Walker – Director, Art Gallery of Western Australia

Much in Common, Nothing Alike celebrates the immense contribution of three Australian ceramic artists, Pippin Drysdale, Jeffery Mincham AM and Warrick Palmateer. The timing is no accident, with Drysdale celebrating her 80th birthday in May and continuing to excite collectors and set the (ceramic) stage into her next decade.

Landscape, landscape and landscape are the common threads for these three doyens of the Australian and international ceramic world. From there, they are indeed “Nothing Alike”!

Drysdale will show recent work alongside work by her longtime wheel thrower, Warrick Palmateer, an exceptional artist in his own right, and by her dear colleague, Jeff Mincham, a major figure in Australian ceramics for over 40 years and a key mentor to her.

Jeffery Mincham returns to Perth for the first time in twelve years, to show a superb range of new works, some over 70 cm high, such as ‘Of Land and Sky and Ever-Changing Things’ (hand-built ceramic) including platters, mid-sized vessels and small, highly sought-after Tea Bowls.

Featured Artists: Jeffery Mincham AM, Pippin Drysdale, Warrick Palmateer

Mincham is a Master of Australian Craft and a Living Treasure since 2009, a Fellow of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation and Member of the Order of Australia. He expresses his personal language through mid-fired textural ceramics, hand-coiled and frequently imposing in scale, the vehicles for his evocative interpretation of landscape in the Adelaide Hills, mostly experienced from his Cherryville studio and the adjacent Fleurieu Peninsula where he grew up on the edge of The Coorong.

“Art” says Jeff Mincham, “is humankind’s really big idea – with endless benefits to the community.”

Lisa Cahill, CEO and Artistic Director of the Australian Design Centre, describes him as “one of Australia’s pre-eminent ceramic artists, who has been a stalwart advocate for craft for many decades. His monumental works evoke a deep painterly respect for the Australian landscape but, ever the raconteur, as he said in a recent interview with me, ‘bugger painting’, his love is the clay.”

Mincham finds abstraction intriguing. ‘Wild at Heart’ (46x36x15cm) continues his investigation of the Japanese Oribe ware ceramic tradition. “Inspiration for my work has long been sourced in the landscape and the natural world, with the drift towards greater degrees of abstraction being almost irresistible.”1 In the 1600s the Japanese were thinking about tea bowls in ways that relate to our contemporary view of abstract expressionism, re-ordering visual experiences and turning them into something else, something entirely new. “This,” says Mincham, “is the big game of being an artist, putting before people something that is entirely new in its form and shape.”2

His election as a National Living Treasure in 2009 and the extensive touring exhibition that followed opened up an intensive period of work and allowed him to clarify his ideas about what he would be doing and why. Nearly fifteen years on, after multiple solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, his work is again on tour with the Australian Design Centre’s exhibition, SIXTY: The Journal of Australian Ceramics 60th Anniversary 1962–2022.

A practicing potter for over thirty-five years, Warrick Palmateer has a deep understanding of the properties of clay. His beach-combing youth, passion for surfing and sensitivity to the changing nature of local beaches and coastlines have consistently informed his art practice. The colours, light, motion and form always beckon with something new.

Palmateer has made a habit of working collaboratively with other artists, especially Pippin Drysdale, throwing her porcelain vessels and marbles for thirty years. Their major survey exhibition, Confluence, at the John Curtin Gallery at Curtin University in 2018, highlighted their very different practices. Palmateer’s vessels, thrown at a colossal scale, were formed from brick clay mined in the Perth Hills and also referenced his coastal home, in stark contrast to the minimalist porcelain installations by Drysdale.

In 2023, with his new studio nearing completion, Palmateer is again turning to the rhythm, movement and textures of the Western Australian coastline for inspiration. “I have always regarded myself as a wheel thrower, so my new work is based on wheel throwing with texture expressively applied and colour intuitively rendered to suggest the rugged and fragile beauty of the ocean and coast, the light, shade and movement of beach and water that has defined me from an early age.” Palmateer enjoys working large though concedes that his new work will not be on the scale of the Confluence exhibition.

Warrick’s enthusiasm is as infectious as his down-to-earth approach: “No matter how well you think you know your kiln, your clay, your materials, they can bite and bite hard – it keeps potters humble!” Recent health problems have restricted his art practice, but the new studio and participation in this exhibition signal new doors opening and collectors will be lining up.

Pippin Drysdale has been a remarkable figure in Australian ceramic art for over four decades, working from her Fremantle studio with a collaborative team, especially Warrick Palmateer. Few Australians have seen their work so extensively exhibited, collected nationally and internationally and held in important public collections and museums around the world.

Drysdale works intuitively, driven by her passion to create. She draws on assimilated experiences of place, topography, remote communities, changing light, flora or fauna, that give rise to her abstract interpretations. Her ceramics are frequently reflections of the famous Kimberley and Pilbara regions, many echoing the ‘vastness’ of place while others explore the ‘smallness’ of things. Memories are key and they run deep. She neither sketches nor photographs her travels, relying rather on emotions, on almost sub-conscious recollections that surface spontaneously to channel her vision.

Lesley Harding and Glenn Barkley write: “Pippin’s ensembles are tabletop–landscapes in their aesthetic manifestation, assemblages needing to be navigated. To borrow the language of New Zealand painter Colin McCahon, such installations require you to walk around them – interpret them physically – as much as to look at them. Within each configuration her forms lightly touch the ground and the whole array of objects undulates into peaks and valleys over which the eye can clamber. The richly coloured surfaces are inscribed with Pip’s own form of topographical mapping, recalling the spidery traces of grass and wind as they sing and sweep across the sand.” 3

“Australia” says Pippin, “is considered ‘young’ in many ways but the truth is that its culture is amongst the oldest in the world. I endeavour to reflect this through my three-dimensional porcelain creations, each one inspired by our bare and bleak continent and the first nations that have called it home for so long.”

“Coloured glazes, incised lines, applied to my porcelain (Devils) marbles and vessels, are my tools to capture the magnificent beauty of remote Australia’s unique environment, the changing hues of the six seasons and to highlight the threats they face.”

Drysdale is a WA State Living Treasure, a Master of Australian Craft and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts by Curtin University in 2020.

With Much In Common, Nothing Alike, Perth audiences have a rare opportunity to experience the ceramic brilliance

of three extraordinary and influential artists. Over decades, Mincham has created his signature glazes, resulting in the unique palette he applies to his hand-coiled organic forms. Monumental in essence, regardless of scale, each artwork tracks changes in the hills of his Cherryville surrounds and the Fleurieu Peninsula, with history and contemporary events reflected equally. Drysdale clusters her porcelain marbles and vessels to evoke breathtaking abstract portraits of the outback through her passion for form and colour. Palmateer is undoubtedly a genius on the wheel, throwing monumental vessels that echo the drama of the ocean and beach, or the perfect porcelain backdrop for Drysdale’s clarion works. Much In Common, Nothing Alike is an inspiring look at the entirely individual practices of Mincham, Drysdale and Palmateer, highlighting their profound respect for the landscape’s physical and spiritual beauty.

Essay by Margaret Jeffery BA (Wits)

Linton & Kay Galleries, Curator: Much In Common

References

1Art Gallery of South Australia Magazine, issue 50 Autumn 2023, p.18 ISSN 2651-9909.

2Australian Design Centre, Jeff Mincham: On Inspiration on Vimeo.

3Glenn Barkley and Lesley Harding revised from exh. cat. An Idea Needing to Be Made: Contemporary Ceramics, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2019.

Pippin Drysdale Wolfe Creek crater installation - BKA IV

Image Robert Frith

JEFFERY MINCHAM AM

The time that it takes to bring together the disparate components of a medium and its processes, a group of ideas and an expressive form is daunting to say the least. However, it is all worth it when these components of the creative process eventually line up in such a way that every step is an adventure and a revelation.

I have been working with these materials for a very long time, decades as it happens, however I have only recently seen a glimpse of their full potential. The glazes that I have created are especially demanding.

I am virtually alone in the use of this unusual family of ceramic surfaces and consequently have had to find my own way. Now I have a unique palette at my disposal to apply to my expressive tasks.

The forms themselves are the result of years of paring down – eliminating the unnecessary to resolve the

clarity of the message and to let the whole work speak for itself. The scale is important but so is the simplicity and the ‘structural elegance’. Like everything in ceramics, the work has history. One cannot help a look over one’s shoulder at how others have approached this process – sometimes hundreds of years ago. Powerful ideas survive and there are some resolutions of form and surface that will endure forever.

The works in this exhibition have been initially inspired by some dramatic events around my home at Cherryville, but it is also a coming together of other things, some of which have taken a long time to get into place. The story to be told, the command of the medium and a sense of purpose now reside happily together.

Jeffery Mincham AM

Photography by Michal Kluvanek and Grant Hancock

Chameleon in the round Dia. 43x10h cm

Caprice

Dia. 41x12h cm

Salute to Oribe IV 8x32x32cm

Still life with tea bowl on lilly pilly wood base 48x24cm

Wild at heart 46x36x15cm

Of land and sky and ever changing things

69x47x32cm

Autumn’s wayward ways

69x47x32cm

An autumn memoire 54x7cm

Tea bowl 20x14cm

Tea bowl (Chawan) 20x14cm

Autumn compositions

52x35x15cm

Halcyon days 50x52x24cm

Composition with grey 44x40x6cm

Last of the camelias 60x52x20cm

Rain-shadow country 50x43x21cm

A summer spent an autumn to reflect 72x51x30cm

Gales of the equinox 66x49x24cm

The last of summer 62x42x21cm

Out of the shadows 60x52x26cm

Tea bowl (Chawan) on found and sculpted grey mangrove base Base 15x15x10cm, Tea bowl 7.5x11cm

Early rain, clearing to fine 24x38cm

PIPPIN DRYSDALE

The grandeur of remote Western Australia has been a source of inspiration to Pippin Drysdale for decades. In recent work, she explains that her attention has shifted ‘from the vastness of land, water and sky to the subtleties of nature’s small and wonderful details’.

In 2023, for the first time, Drysdale entered and was selected as a Finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, in the category of figurative sculpture. She describes this as ‘a miracle!’ after Covid restrictions and suffering a heart attack in early 2022. ‘Wolfe Creek Crater Installation BKA IV’, on exhibition in Sydney, shines a light on her deep attachment to remote Australia and her concern to preserve precious places under threat of climate change or exploitation.

‘Working collaboratively with my dear friend and thrower, Warrick Palmateer, I turned to my memories of Wolfe Creek. The crater reflects 120,000 years of geological history, from the moment of meteorite impact. Within the crater are little creatures, insects and birds, like the Brown Ringtail Dragons, whose colours can range from orange to pale beige with yellow on the underbelly, and butterflies such as the Glasswing or Spotted Dusky Blue, with their fluttering, glistening wings. The elusive Major Mitchell cockatoos are residents of the crater and are a stunning sight in flight against a backdrop of red rocks and blue skies. All in all, it is a raw and rugged environment, just as it should be.’

Photography by Robert Frith

Rosy-fingered dawn installation BKA IV

Dimensions variable 21h-10h cm

Glen Helen GorgeMcDonell Ranges

BKA IV 29x19cm

Ruby salt bush installation

BKA IV

Dimensions variable 11.5h-8h cm

Ochre Cliffs, Ellery Creek

installation BKA IV

Dimensions variable

30-8.5cm

Cotton candy

installation BKA IV

Dimensions variable

23-31cm

Shadow play installation

BKA III & IV

Dimensions variable

26-12cm

Traces of time

Kings Canyon

BKA IV

39x22.5cm

Knox Gorge meridian installation BKA

Dimensions variable 21-11cm

Meridian Ochre Pits installation BKA IV

Dimensions variable 26.5-10.5cm

Pippin Drysdale artworks in Living With Art We Love exhibition Chatsworth UK 2022, Image Courtesy Chatsworth Collections 2022

WARRICK PALMATEER

Warrick Palmateer is a Western Australian potter with over 35 years of experience working with clay. Growing up on the southwest coastline guaranteed that he would be an avid beach comber and surfer from a young age. This love has given him a deep insight into the littoral zone – where land meets ocean.

Palmateer shared the stage with Pippin Drysdale in their major survey exhibition, Confluence, at the John Curtin Gallery in 2018. His vessels in Confluence were gargantuan in scale, formed from brick clay mined in the Perth Hills and also referencing his coastal home north of Perth.

Collaboration has been an integral part of Palmateer’s artistic practice, throwing Drysdale’s minimalist porcelain vessels and marbles for over thirty years, working with photographer Robert Frith, film maker Matthew Bettinaglio and composer Ryan Burge, all significant players in the Confluence survey exhibition.

For Palmateer, collaboration is a two-way street: “You grow and learn so much from shared experiences.”

“Clay is a simple, pure material,” he says, “immediately responsive to the touch. It is transformative in its nature, changing from soft, malleable and plastic to hard durable and permanent once heat is applied. These magical properties have captivated me ever since being introduced to this form of alchemy when I was an art student at high school.”

Palmateer’s works are held in numerous collections including the University of Western Australia, BGC Midland Brick, Kerry Stokes, Adrian Fini, Diane McCusker and The Art Gallery of Western Australia (collaborative work with Pippin Drysdale). Teaching is another passion and lecturing in ceramics has seen him pass on his knowledge to many aspiring ceramicists.

Photography by Helen Palmateer and Robert Frith

Spiral jetty - obverse Dia. 45x45h cm

Spiral jetty - reverse Dia. 45x45h cm

Meridian arc IV - reverse Dia. 70x70h cm

Meridian arc IV - obverse Dia. 70x70h cm

Osprey landing Dia. 53x53h cm

Sandy cape Dia. 51x51h cm

Granite Pool Dia. 72x53h cm

Compass circle Dia. 51x60h cm

Meridian shoal Dia. 50x50h cm

ACCOLADES TO PIPPIN DRYSDALE

Unbeknown to Pippin and to mark her 80th birthday, a number of significant curators, collectors and gallerists have generously written the accolades that follow, leaving no doubt of her standing as artist and friend.

The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, Chatsworth, Derbyshire, UK:

“Getting to know Pippin as a friend and as a hugely admired artist has been the most exciting aspect of our ceramic life. We were bowled over when we first saw her work nearly 20 years ago and her new work still has that incredible ability to astonish and delight in equal measure. Many of her works have been on display to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to Chatsworth every year and they are probably the most popular of all our contemporary additions to the Collections, which span 400 years. Pippin the person and Pippin’s pots are equally wonderful and loveable and we are very lucky to have her in our lives.”

Colin Walker, Director Art Gallery of Western Australia:

“The ceramic forms that emerge from Pippin’s Fremantle studio have an international reach and importance. One of Australia’s most significant artists, she has done so much to convey the complex and fragile beauty of Western Australia’s unique environment. Whether in single objects or in carefully fashioned groups, Pippin’s work opens up not only what it is to look at a landscape but to be fully within it. In this manner, she has been intently focused on making works that match the subtle nuances and rich sophistication of the places she engages with. Her cultivation of a peerless skillset and vision has been, therefore, generously expansive; it is about creating dialogues between the land of her inspiration and the people who will carry forth her concern for it.”

Adrian Sassoon, Director of Adrian Sassoon London:

“Happy Birthday Pippin! We wish we saw more of you and that you saw more of the many sincere admirers of your wonderful work in the UK and USA. Through your remarkable work you send so much pleasure across the world and we adore being a part of delivering that.”

Patti Belletty: Curator, John Curtin Gallery

“Well… what can one say about Pippin Drysdale other than she is a complete FORCE OF NATURE and we have had the absolute pleasure to know and work with many times in the last two decades.

“The John Curtin Gallery has held not one but two major exhibitions of Pippin’s evolving ceramic forms. The first in 2007 ‘Lines of Site’ featuring the full range of her art practice at the time, from the slab works, lustred and other vessels through to the larger closed forms. Then in 2018, she pulled off the unthinkable and (with Warrick’s help and expertise) created the extraordinary, lustred marbles that were truly a vision to behold in a darkened, cavernous exhibition space showcasing over 100 new marbles. Curtin University is proud to have awarded Pippin a welldeserved Honorary Doctorate in 2020 to further cement her status as a Living Treasure.

“Three cheers to you Pippin! Hip, Hip, Hooray! Congratulations to a fabulous Octogenarian. Love from all the staff at the John Curtin Gallery.”

Eva Czernis-Ryl, Curator, Powerhouse, Sydney:

“I adore Pippin Drysdale’s gently undulating rocks, they are so caressable. Her vessels take my thoughts to places only rarely visited: each time I encounter Pippin’s exquisitely made pieces, I see miniature floating clouds (or maybe tiny tornadoes?), glowing intensely with those burned yellows, oranges, blues, greens…Their allure is overwhelming. While Pippin’s vessels seem to belong to another world, we know they are born from the artist’s deep respect for the history and unique beauty of the Australian landscape, and that is where their power comes from, that is why these works are so engaging, almost spiritual. I know I’m not alone in my admiration. Pippin’s Breakaway series - Palm Valley, NT was recently on display in the Powerhouse’s ‘Clay Dynasty’ exhibition in Sydney. In this 5-piece work Pippin ‘wanted to create a visual response to the topography of chasms, gorges, gaps and cavities created over millions of years’. I could not resist the pleasure of observing how our visitors were drawn to this small installation in the vast space of the gallery of some 400 objects; most would linger at this showcase, take time to take the work in, and as my gallery colleagues happily testify, often exclaim in delight. Happy Birthday Pippin Drysdale!”

Lisa Cahill, CEO and Artistic Director, Australian Design Centre:

“I am honoured to be asked to write a few words celebrating the magnificent career of Pippin Drysdale. With a masterful passion for her craft and a highly artistic perception of landscape, Pippin creates extraordinary works of sheer beauty in her unique partnership with Warrick Palmateer. In her work Granite Warriors Winborn Rocks Central Desert, currently touring in the Australian Design Centre exhibition SIXTY: The Journal of Australian Ceramics 60th Anniversary 1962–2022, the viewer is transported by forms and colours, capturing the rocky formations and weathered fractures of a unique landform.”

Linton Partington and Gary Kay, Directors, Linton & Kay Galleries:

“Congratulations, Pippin on your wonderful career, you’ve achieved so many high points, always with passion and a rigourous eye to the quality of your art practice. Your warmth and generosity to your friends, colleagues and collectors is legendary. As the decades roll by, you continue to aim for more, to challenge yourself and to tackle new obstacles head on. Happy birthday to our dear, charismatic WA Living Treasure.”