Judge
Sandra Black is a ceramic artist who has been influential over many years for her imaginative work in porcelain and bone china, and especially her innovative techniques in piercing and carving clay.
Sandra Black has now been working for around 45 years as a ceramic artist, with at least 31 solo exhibitions in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. She has participated in over 280 invitation exhibitions in many countries including India, Japan, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, China, UK, New Zealand, Germany and Singapore. She has taught consistently in a range of places and contexts nationally and internationally and has won awards such as the Fletcher Challenge Award in New Zealand.
Her work has been published in numerous prestigious international journals and books including Masters of Porcelain, published by Lark books in 2008. Her work is held in many public and private collections throughout Australia and overseas, including the City of Townsville Art Collection.
Image right:
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Sandra Black, Winter Mist, slipcast ebony and white porcelain with laser decal, 14.2 x 17.7 x 10.6 cm. Photograph Victor France. Courtesy of the Artist
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Finalists
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Lisa Ashcroft
From nine rotting Manchineels dazzling jewels grow 2019
White raku stoneware and Mayco glaze with rusted wire, fabric, plastic, glitter and materials
Nine parts; various dimensions, 30 cm circ.
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About the Artist
Lisa Ashcroft was born in Manchester, England, and attended Cyprus College of Art, and the New York School of Art. She currently has a studio at home in Townsville, where she is developing her sculpture and painting practice. She has work in private and public collections in the UK, America, Cyprus, Germany, Spain, and Australia.
She recently took part in the 2019 Strand Ephemera sculpture festival, exhibiting five sculptures based on swelling environmental issues. She recently held an abstract landscape show at Umbrella Studio and has been shortlisted for the Blackpool Illuminations Design Award in the UK. She will also be running a variety of community youth workshops in 2020.
About the Work
The purpose of this collective is to create a miniature megalithic landscape that sparks debate and thought. The Manchineel’s are withering and decaying yet internally they start to bloom and regrow. The piece represents that we all have light and dark inside us and that with hope new beginnings can form.
The Manchineel is a metaphor for the sinister degradation we are causing to the landscape. High turnover of garbage decays in landfills yet we desire more trinkets to satisfy our greed.
Clay dug from the earth and manipulated by fingers is a personal journey to each artist. By handcrafting the ceramics with other materials it became highly intimate, showing love towards an object that will itself be in a landfill some day.
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Fiona Banner
Rainbow Pod 2020
Hand built stoneware and underglazes
12 x 44 x 15 cm
This Pod Life 2020
Hand built stoneware
Two parts; 10 x 45 x 40 cm
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About the Artist
After forty years of potting, I still enjoy exploring the many aspects of ceramics, from handbuilding such as pinch pots, to wheelthrowing techniques.
About Rainbow Pod
This pod was inspired by my tropical, colourful surrounds, full of unique shapes.
About This Pod Life
These pods are inspired by my tropical environment which is full of unique shapes and colours which I love transforming into vessels.
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Stephen Bird
Sarah 2019
Glazed earthenware
49 x 17 x 19 cm
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About the Artist
Stephen Bird was born in Stoke On Trent, England, in 1964, and has been in Australia since 1999.
Bird majored in painting at The Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Scotland. He works with paint and clay and has undertaken a number of site-specific sculpture commissions. Bird’s work is exhibited nationally and internationally including the 9th Gyeonggi Biennale, South Korea, 2017, 2015, Horizon –Landscapes, Ceramics and Print, The National Museum of Norway, Oslo, 2013, and Peripheral Visions: Contemporary Art from Australia, Garis+Hahn, New York, 2013. His works are held in many public collections including the National Gallery of Australia and the National Museum of Scotland.
About the Work
The sculpture entitled Sarah was the central figure in the installation Continent of Exiles, and occupied an area of the composition where a line divided sky from earth. Reflecting on a passage from Tolstoy’s War and Peace; “One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death.”
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Mollie Bosworth
It’s Not Dark Yet 2019
Porcelain, metallic salts
Two parts; 18 x 27 x 16 cm
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About the Artist
Mollie Bosworth is best known for her fine wheel thrown porcelain, developed over thirty years of professional ceramic practice. She has employed many techniques with her current porcelain work, featuring custom decals and the uncommon use of soluble metallic salts. Her arts practice now includes cyanotype printing and both mediums draw on her interest in botanical themes.
Although mainly a self taught artist, she holds a Diploma of Art (Ceramics) 2003, from the Australian National University. Her practice encompasses work for group and solo exhibitions and retail with occasional workshop teaching. She has won many awards including the Townsville National Ceramic Award – 2005, Siliceous, and Melting Pot, 2018. Her work is included in several public collections including that of Manly Art Gallery, Gold Coast City, and within the City of Townsville Art Collection.
About the Work
The mystery, intrigue, and excitement of the watercolors on porcelain process keeps challenging me to push the boundaries. This work explores the use of a rarely used soluble metallic salt which produces black in extreme reduction firings. Ideas are developed during the making as detailed planning may produce unreliable results. Patterns are developed on the surface and influenced by moisture, acids and other chemicals as well as the firing process. When is black really black? There are so many blacks. ‘As black as night’ often proves to be not so dark. Light and dark are explored in this work as well as other opposing concepts and allude to night in the landscape with the image of trees in silhouette. The polished porcelain surfaces absorb light contrasting with glossy and mica decals reflect light around the forms.
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Caldera 2 2020
Ceramic, cold glaze
21.5 x 26 x 26 cm
Caldera 2020
Ceramic and mixed media cold glaze
15 x 27 x 27 cm
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Lisa Brummel
About the Artist
Lisa Brummel lives on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, where she has recently completed a Master of Arts by Research at Central Queensland University, developing a new alternative glazing technique for the Raku kiln. Brummel is an experimental ceramist who pushes the traditional boundaries of cold glazing techniques and ceramics.
About the Work
Spectacular calderas (craters) dot the Earth’s landscape, a permanent residual reminder of the rivers of ash formed by volcanic eruptions a millennia ago. The blackened landscape has inspired this work of hybrid techniques, fusing ceramic base with the application of cold glazing, necessitated by the closure of firing facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Annette Bukovinsky
Fall 2020
Porcelain and bitumen
34 x 12.5 x 3.5 cm
When the Bough Breaks 2020
Porcelain
14 x 42 x 3 cm
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About the Artist
My practice largely centres on investigating humanity’s relationship with nature and the search for a new ecological philosophy addressing the challenges threatening the vitality of our planet.
Much of my work employs the use of porcelain; it is a material that is known paradoxically for its strength and fragility. It bears witness to its own state of flux and given that a ‘state of flux’ reflects my ecological observations, I believe porcelain has many relatable characteristics that can potentially increase the dialogue regarding the current health of our natural environments.
By utilising techniques of coiling and moulding, I am able to have direct engagement with the clay, enabling a more considered articulation of ideas and concepts. My interest in nonconventional surface applications, such as synthetic paint and bitumen, feeds my desire to explore the nexus between tradition and innovation, and extend the link between structure, surface, and concept.
About the Work
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports that over 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity can be found in forests. The degradation and loss of forests not only threatens the survival of many species but also reduces the essential ecological conditions humanity needs such as clean air, water, soil quality, and climatic regulation. This work explores my concerns for our precious forests and the health of our planet using a medium that is also paradoxically known for its strength and fragility - porcelain.
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Annette Bukovinsky
Frontline 2020
Porcelain and acrylic
14 x 26 x 22.5 cm
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About the Work
Many areas of Australia suffered terrible losses this summer due to unprecedented and catastrophic firestorms. Hundreds of properties were destroyed, millions of hectares of native bushland were lost, and our precious wildlife was incinerated on an immense scale.
As the world watched on, these devastating bushfires sparked a global debate about climate change and the threat it poses to all. But the world also saw the character of our nation on display as thousands of brave volunteer firefighters battled tirelessly to save lives and property. The world saw individuals perform heroic feats and communities come together in support of one another in the wake of enormous devastation. The herculean efforts of so many Australians were evidenced this summer and this artwork pays homage to the exceptional heroism displayed by taking their position on the frontline.
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Pepai Jangala Carroll
Walungurru 2020
Stoneware, slip and underglaze
45 x 38 x 20 cm
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About the Artist
“Art is a type of memory theatre for Pepai Jangala Carroll. Although based for decades in Pukatja… Carroll’s custodial home country is his father’s country near Kintore in the Northern Territory. Carrying the recurring title of Walungurru, in this naming, like the act of painting and working in clay, is recuperative for Carroll, enabling him to call up Luritja/ Pintupi country.” (Lisa Slade, Art Gallery of South Australia, 2016)
Carroll is a senior artist at Ernabella Arts in the remote Aboriginal community of Pukatja, South Australia. His distinct style in depicting his father’s Country has seen his work selected as a finalist in the Indigenous Ceramics Art Award. Carroll’s ceramics and paintings have been acquired by the Parliament House Collection in Canberra, National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Art Gallery of NSW, the Araluen Collection and ArtBank. Carroll recently had his first international solo exhibition at Harvey Art Projects in America.
About the Work
Carroll’s father comes from sand-dune country near Kintore in the Northern Territory. This place is called Walungurru. It is in Walungurru that the Wanampi, or rainbow serpent, is looking for the man. He did the wrong thing and he is running into sand hill country. The Wanampi made that road and he brought the water with him. There was no water here before, but it is still there now.
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Kris Coad
journey series 2020
Porcelain cloth
25 x 45 x 46 cm
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About the Artist
Kris Coad lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She has been a practicing artist for over thirty years, dividing her time between her studio and as an educator at RMIT University in Melbourne and Hong Kong.
Coad alternates exhibition work with large and small-scale ceramic commissions, both within Australia and internationally. She also produces a translucent porcelain tableware range.
Coad has exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions, including the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, Korean Ceramic Biennale, Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne, Manly Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, Woollahra Small Sculpture and Craft Victoria. Commissions include the Paris Peninsula, the Municipal Offices of the Greater City of Dandenong and the Beson office CBD Melbourne. Her work has been acquired for public and private collections, including Icheon World Ceramic Centre Korea, Parliament House Canberra, and Shepparton Art Gallery. Coad’s work has also been featured in magazines, journals and custom books.
About the Work
My recent work is inspired by the concept of journey. We live in challenging times, with species being extinct. I have been thinking about how we protect the fragility of life. Do you wrap and bundle, keeping safe...
My interest is in the in-between moment. Between the gathering, wrapping and what comes next. Thinking about the stillness of that space; the gap, the breath, the space between, a reflection of what was and thoughts of what is to come. An immeasurable space between two things as they transition into and between one to the other.
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Anne Cole
Virago 2019
Buff raku trachyte, iron oxide
42 x 35 cm
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About the Artist
Anne Cole is an emerging artist studying a Diploma of Visual Arts at TAFE North Queensland. She is concerned about societal and environmental issues and aims to bring greater awareness of these issues through her art practice.
Cole has worked with clay for many years, producing functional and sculptural works. For the past three years she has participated in group members’ exhibitions at Umbrella Studio of Contemporary Arts, and student exhibitions through TAFE North Queensland. Cole also sculpts in hebel, sandstone, and marble, and has participated in sculpture workshops in Australia and Italy.
About the Work
A virago is a woman of heroic qualities, a female warrior. She is a woman of great stature, strength, and courage. In Roman times, virago was a title of respect and admiration. Each woman has a little of the virago inside that she can draw upon when needed.
There is an unacceptale level of domestic violence against women in Australia. On average, one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner, one in four women have experienced abuse by a current or former partner since the age of fifteen, and 85% of Australian women have been sexually harassed. Virago qualities are needed in today’s cultural acceptance of domestic violence.
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Len Cook
Shields 2020
Unglazed porcelain
Three parts; 13 x 52 x 22 cm each
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About the Artist
I have been a potter for over forty years. Like a lot of potters, I started out making utilitarian ware and am very involved in prolonged wood firing. My other passion is making sculptural pieces inspired by our coral reef.
About the Work
My inspiration for these pieces came about originally when I first moved to North Queensland. I have had the opportunity to snorkel on the reef many times and am fascinated by the amazing patterns of the coral. My sculptures are constantly changing.
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Margaret Crawford
After the Monsoons 2020
Porcelain, stoneware, sgriffito, midfire glaze
Three parts; 25 x 22 x 25 cm
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About the Artist
I became involved in Townsville’s visual arts scene in 1998, gaining a Diploma of Visual Arts in 2007, majoring in Painting. Since then I have gravitated to printmaking and pottery. Pottery brings together all my artist instincts as I find clay a perfect canvas to express myself. My work has predominately been inspired by the North Queensland environment. I enjoy combining wheel throwing and handbuilding processes using porcelain and stoneware clay and firing to 1220°C.
About the Work
Townsville is unique geographically, and sits within an area known as the Dry Tropics. This region relies on the monsoons to replenish its rivers, creeks, and dams. The native plants depicted on my pottery are some of the flora that rely on the monsoon season to rejuvenate and propagate.
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Kaz Davis
Induction 2020
White stoneware clay, matte and satin matte glazes, copper carbonate
Two parts; 9.5 x 13 x 13 cm, 8.5 x 10.2 x 10.2 cm
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About the Artist
Over the past three decades, Kaz Davis has worked in a range of media including photography, drawing, sculpture, and mixed media installations. For the past few years, she has used porcelain and stoneware clay to make sculptural and functional objects. A common thread that runs through her practice is a focus on surface texture starting with her use of patinated bronze and copper. A recent part of her research process includes capturing images of surfaces that are worn, weathered, decaying, or simply maturing with time. These reference points inform the layered surfaces of muted colour and texture on the recent stoneware pieces that Davis has developed. The meditative aspect of the labour intensive and repetitive making processes that she engages in is revealed in the sense of quietude conveyed by the forms and surfaces that she creates.
About the Work
The variations in surface texture and colour is due to the magic kiss of the kiln. Both pieces have the same glaze and slip on the outside and were fired separately in oxidation. The colours recall weathered rocks in the Australian bush, covered with layers of lichen. The scorched black marks evoke the ferocity of the recent fires that tore through Eastern Australia in late 2019. These forms, made of earth and vitrified in extreme heat, speak of the generative and destructive aspects of fire.
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Johanna DeMaine
Soar Like an Eagle 2020
Southern Ice porcelain, clear glaze, copper lustre, gold, sand etched, raised enamel
18 x 20 x 16 cm
Sublime Floating 2020
Southern Ice porcelain, clear glaze, bespoke mica decals, self printed
laser decals, raised enamel, gold
4 x 22 cm diam.
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About the Artist
Landsborough and Kyushu based artist Johanna DeMaine commenced potting in 1971. Since then, she has had in excess of forty solo exhibitions, participated in over 200 group exhibitions, and won numerous awards.
DeMaine has exhibited extensively overseas and her work is held in such illustrious collections as that of HRH Queen Elizabeth II of England, Crown Prince Frederik and Princess Mary of Denmark, the Governor General of Australia, and the National Gallery of Australia.
About Soar Like an Eagle
This piece is a tribute to my late husband, Ted DeMaine. Ted was my mentor, muse, inspiration, and happiness who gave me his total support to follow my path. Now almost five years since his untimely passing, I can still hear him telling me to “soar like an eagle”.
About Sublime Floating
Sublime Floating further explores my current theme of floating. Here, through collaging, I am using various types of decals overlaid to evoke this feeling.
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Ukiyo 2020
Southern Ice porcelain, clear glaze, lustre, gold, sand etched, raised enamel
15 x 12.5 x 12 cm
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Johanna DeMaine
About the Work
Ukiyo (浮世, floating, fleeting, or transient world), describes the urban lifestyle, especially the pleasure-seeking aspects, of the Edo-period Japan (1600–1867). Since sharing my life with Tatsuya between Landsborough and Kyushu, Japan, my work has evolved by documenting and overlaying the essential beauty of both countries. Floating is a common theme. The wonderful Glasshouse Mountains, which virtually are in my backyard, appear to float at certain times when the mist and cloud cover the plain below. Kyushu always seems to float when the fields are covered with water prior to rice planting. I have tried to capture this feeling in this piece, Ukiyo
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Mimi Dennett
Fate Amenable to Change 2020
White raku
40 x 30 x 15 cm
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About the Artist
Mimi Dennett develops immersive site-specific installations, collaborative performances, and smaller scale sculptures. Her interdisciplinary approach is often process driven and hybrid in form. The works can incorporate sculptural installation, projection, video, light works, architectural space, performance, community workshops, and costumes. Creating in both solo and collaborative formats with composers, sound artists, musicians, choreographers, contemporary dance practitioners, and other visual artists, this diverse practice investigates notions of collaborative transformation through community dialogue, workshop development and performance. The participants are invited to engage directly with the visceral process of making. She has also collaborated with members of the CWA and worked with Newaste, focusing on single use plastic recycling and workshops for the community.
Dennett’s solo work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
About the Work
This body of work spans the 365 days after my mother’s death. Each element represents one day, slowing down time to reconcile art, life and death.
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Tony Di Giacomo
Crystal Flower 2020
Porcelain, crystalline glaze
36 x 15 x 15 cm
Emerald Frost 2020
Porcelain, crystalline glaze
33 x 17 x 17 cm
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About the Artist
It has only been in the past few years that I focused on wheel-thrown pottery in a more dedicated manner. Until recently, I have used traditional stoneware glazes to complete my works but have now transitioned to crystalline glaze. The beauty and excitement that these glazes bring make it difficult to go back to those other glazes.
The journey has only just begun with so much more to learn and master. It is a time consuming and quite expensive glaze and one where results aren’t always predicable, but when it all works out, it makes it so worthwhile.
To me, crystalline glazes are magical and can transform a piece of pottery to a work of art in a way that only nature does best!
About Crystal Flower
Crystalline glazes can be spectacular. They are real crystals that grow inside the glaze just like snowflakes but made of zinc silicate. While the crystals themselves are enough to make the ceramic piece shine, incorporating quartz crystals in a piece adds another body of work. This vase has a beautiful smoky quartz cluster coming out of the vase, like a flower. It enhances the beauty of the vase in a unique way.
About Emerald Frost
It is the glaze that the eye sees and no matter how grand a piece is thrown on the wheel, in the end, it’s that glaze that makes it distinctive.
The crystalline glaze used on this vase is saturated with a metal oxide that needs to be etched using an acid after it comes out of the kiln. This process lightens up the crystals in the glaze giving them depth as well as revealing a beautiful green background in the clay body. This technique provides another dimension to crystalline glazes.
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Rowley Drysdale
Biidoro #1 (Glaze Drip Vase) 2019
Ash and iron blue glazes, reduced cool, 60 hour firing in anagama kiln
48 x 12 x 12 cm
Swirling blue orb 2019
Ash and iron blue glazes, reduced cool, 60 hour firing in anagama kiln
28 x 28 x 28 cm
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About the Artist
Rowley Drysdale is an artist working primarily in ceramics, sculpture, and mixed media assemblages. Born in outback Queensland, the land remains a central inspiration in his artwork. His practice spans four decades of interest in ceramics, especially wood fired work utilising glaze on functional forms, and the development of unique high fired glazes.
A long standing lecturer and tertiary educator of visual arts, Drysdale now holds regular workshops for ceramic artists at his studio on the Sunshine Coast, Quixotica Art Space. He has a Master of Arts (Research) from Monash University.
Drysdale has long been recognised as an ambassador for Australian wood fired ceramics and has forged significant relationships with other renowned international potters, particularly in South Korea. He has worked and exhibited widely in other countries including Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and New Zealand, and is a vocal advocate for handmade objects, craftsmanship and innovation.
About Biidoro #1 (Glaze Drip Vase)
Produced in the firebox of a wood kiln, this cylindrical form was side fired on sea shells to ensure its survival. Buried beneath coals for 60 hours, the work emerges scarred but marked by flows of ash and jewel like drips of glaze, with somehow, ironically, a marine like appearance.
Biidoro is a term borrowed from Japanese ceramic lexicon, which describes the glasslike glaze formed by ash in the firing process. Sometimes the biidoro glass coagulates to form a globule called a ‘dragonfly eye’. Many of these are seen on this form.
About Swirling blue orb
This piece has emerged from the firebox of a Sunshine Coast wood fired kiln and references the marine landscape with tones of reef and sky. The imprint of sea shells reinforces the aesthetic of the ocean and is also a technical consideration, to avoid destructive contact with kiln shelves. The spherical form reinforces the vast notion of beaches, ocean and sky.
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Dan Elborne
Remains S1P4 2014
Porcelain coated animal bone, clear glaze, and gold lustre
Multiple parts; 10.5 x 135 x 8 cm
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About the Artist
Dan Elborne is an artist currently based in Melbourne. His primary working material is clay. Elborne creates ceramic focussed installations and sculpture, which draw from varying points of personal experience and significance. By utilising the fragile, precious and honorary nature of ceramics, he addresses sensitive personal and historical events underpinned by his own memory.
Elborne’s work has been exhibited, collected, and published nationally and internationally. He has also participated in numerous artist residencies across the globe, some of which were assisted by awards and scholarships.
From 2011 to 2014, Elborne completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Art) with First Class Honours through the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in Toowoomba. In 2019, he completed a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) through USQ, which focussed on the role, relevance, and responsibility of contemporary art in representing atrocities and traumatic human experience.
About the Work
Remains is an ongoing series which began in 2014 and continues to this day. The work serves as a thematic nod to the foundational ideas of my larger scale, installation-based projects. While providing an avenue for detailed materialbased experimentation, Remains serves as a champion to the metaphorical and philosophical potency of ceramic materials. In combination with bone, a signifier of mortality, Remains poses questions of legacy and reverence.
Ultimately, I hope for the work to speak of the delicate nature of life, alongside ideas of preservation, memorialisation and commemorative practices, all of which form the conceptual premise of my installationbased work.
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Georgina Elms
Kimberley #1 & #2 2020
Porcelaineous stoneware and Southern Ice porcelain, polished porcelain exterior, black porcelain interior and base
Two parts; 12 x 16.5 cm, 10 x 20.5 cm
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About the Artist
In my almost fifty years of potting, my work has developed from stoneware through to black porcelain, then on to fine white porcelain and bone china.
I am inspired by the work of Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, as well as traditional Asian ceramics. With a Churchill Fellowship in the UK in 1988, I was amazed by the 16th and 17th Century Iznik ceramics at the V&A Museum, with their brilliant coloured floral designs of the Ottoman period. This experience, as well as my exposure to old Imari and Nabeshima ware whilst exhibiting in Kitakyushu, Japan, and my first hand observations of Jingdezhen porcelain in the Shanghai Museum, has further inspired the continued refinement of form and decorative technique in my work.
About the Work
Since visiting the Kimberley region, the natural forms of the Australian landscape and the brilliant colours of our native flora have become a source of inspiration for my work, and over the last few years I have been working on this project from my private studio, surrounded by our quiet, lush garden, allowing me a constant source of peace and pleasure.
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Merran Esson
Autumn on the Upper Murray 2019
Stoneware clay with copper glazes
Ten parts; various dimensions
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About the Artist
Merran Esson has been making works of art using clay for over forty years. She has an MA in Ceramics from Monash University (2004). Her awards include; The Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize (2019), Muswellbrook Art Prize in Ceramics (2019), Poyntzpass Pioneer Ceramic Award (2008), Gold Coast Ceramic Award (2005), Port Hacking Ceramic Award (2000), and The Austceram Award (1994). Esson has been a finalist in The Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize (2014, 2017, 2019), Sculpture by the Sea (2016), Sculpture in Scenic World (2017, 2018, 2019), Sculpture in the Valley (2017), The University of Western Sydney Sculpture Award (2018, 2020), and The Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize (2018, 2019, 2020).
Her work is in the collections of The National Gallery of Australia, The Art Galleries of South Australia and Western Australia, The Gold Coast City Art Gallery, and in many international and national collections.
She is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva.
About the Work
Autumn is a sign of change on the land, a signal that summer is ending. The colours of autumn are best seen in the European trees planted in groups throughout the upper Murray area of NSW, in the rolling hills of Tumbarumba, and all journeys in between. In the landscape, the purpose of these trees is to create shade from the hot summer sun and protection from the winter winds. They are the passing images that become familiar, revealing themselves in the creative processes that inform this art. They realise an abstract simplification that triggers one’s own sensations. They are voluptuous forms that speak of passion and longing; the journey continues.
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Carol Forster
Shelly Beach 2020
Mid fire clay and glazes
25 x 36 x 9 cm
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About the Artist
I started my artistic career as a commercial artist in the early 1970s before moving on to the visual arts where I studied painting and printmaking. In my final year of college, I discovered clay, and my passion for this medium still sustains me today. Throughout my career I have produced a wide range of both functional and sculptural ceramics for national and international galleries. Teaching ceramics and design has also been a major influence and joy, as it allows me to share my knowledge with others.
My studio is located in Buderim on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, where the coastal and rural landscapes are a constant inspiration. For me, the process of making is equally as satisfying as the finished work.
About the Work
These tiny shells have been collected on my many walks along the beaches of the Sunshine Coast. On taking them back to my studio I have moulded and cast them to create the surface texture of this piece. It serves to remind me of the beauty and accessibility of our coastal areas and the need to preserve them for future generations to enjoy.
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Cathy Franzi
Brachychiton albidus 2020
Porcelain, engobe, sgraffito, and glaze
56.6 x 20.6 x 20 cm
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About the Artist
Dr Cathy Franzi is a visual artist engaged in ideas of nature and the environment. Through the materiality of ceramics and its possibilities for form, surface imagery, and installation, she explores ways to express botanical knowledge. Her work is underpinned by research in the botanical sciences, natural history collections and fieldwork on location.
In 2016, Franzi was awarded a PhD from the ANU School of Art & Design, followed by a prestigious artist fellowship in the Research School of Biology. She has worked closely with scientists on a number of projects including the Art of Threatened Species, culminating in an exhibition at Western Plains Cultural Centre, and with the National Seed Bank, Seeds from the Bank.
Her work is held in numerous public collections including the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, the ACT Legislative Assembly, and the Parliament House Art Collection. Dr Cathy Franzi is represented by Beaver Galleries, Canberra, and Sabbia Gallery, Sydney.
About the Work
David Attenborough recently said, “In times of crisis, the natural world is a source of both joy and solace.” This is particularly poignant in Australia after a summer and bushfire season that has fundamentally changed delicate ecosystems, altering our relationship to familiar nature areas and our ability to spend time in them. He continues, “If we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.”
In December, wandering through my local nature reserve despairing at the impact of drought, I saw kurrajongs, an Indigenous tree covered in masses of joyful, beautiful, five-lobed flowers. Subsequently I learnt that Australia has many species of Brachychiton, most in tropical Queensland. Brachychiton albidus is a lesser known rainforest tree endemic to southern Cape York Peninsula, growing in open Eucalypt forest, vine thickets and monsoon forest. It is deciduous, the large pink-red flowers forming a striking presence on the predominantly bare branches during the dry season.
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Anne Grotian
Courthing 2020
BRT stoneware, fired 1250°C, highfire slip, black iron ore
Two parts; 100 x 120 x 100 cm
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About the Artist
Anne Grotian was born in Hamburg, Germany. She completed a Diploma of Engineering, graduating in Fashion and Textile Design (Fachhochschule Niederrhein, Germany) in 1976. She migrated to Australia in 2009, and since migrating to Australia she has been exploring the sculptural qualities of stoneware. In 2014, Grotian recieved an award as part of Sculpture in the Harbour, 100 Years of ANZAC, The Albany Convoy Centenary. Her last solo exhibition was in Bunbury Regional Art Galleries, WA, in 2016. In 2017, she exhibited in Mundaring as part of the exhibition, Habits of Horses, and in 2020 was selected for the South West Survey, Bunbury, WA.
Grotian’s work is held in public and private collections.
About the Work
My work starts with the interest in form. There is no difference if it is a form of a horse, head, or coiled pot. I need the more abstract form of the vessel to create my figurative work. The process is generally a long one and there are no shortcuts.
If I am satisfied with the object, the process of refining ideas starts. Sometimes it results in a single form, like a boat carrying the story. More often I use the principle of the series or installation. Through cut outs, laying down, fragments, and negative space, they formulate a new concept. The work is no longer only ceramic but sculptural through the size and place in space.
This work looks into movement, dance, playfulness, and commedia-dell’arte. I chose the form of spinning tops, and through supersizing them, the visual impact changes.
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Chris
Guthleben
Then there were 3 2020
Double gourd raku fired pots
Three parts; 18 x 13 cm, 14 x 11 cm, 12 x 9 cm
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About the Artist
Starting as a hobby with friends years ago, the creative elements of pottery have become a major influence in my life, allowing me to express myself in my work.
Studying at East Sydney Tech stimulated my interest in creating special glazes and firing techniques, such as Saggar & Raku Firing, Arabian lustre, Barium fluxes glazes, and reduced stoneware glazes to complement the form of decorative work, and the functionality of domestic ware.
As a committed potter I am always looking to stretch and test my abilities, not only with other potters but with the public. I am proud that my work has been featured in various publications and award exhibitions, and is represented in various galleries, collections, and at major craft shows.
About the Work
Having worked with clay for several years, I still enjoy working and exploring different shapes and glazes. Particularly with raku firings. Then there were 3 incorporates two of my favourites, copper patina inside and on the top gourd, with naked raku on the outside base.
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Sandy Hablethwaite
Hanging about 2020
Special K and cone 6 glazes, mixed media
48 x 49 x 12.5 cm
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About the Artist
I love working with different types of clay and glazes, and enjoy combining vessels with figurines and mixing things up.
I have been working with clay for years now and still cannot find a particular clay body or glaze I can stick with... there is just far too much to explore within the ceramics world.
About the Work
The reason I like to wood fire is because pieces often emerge from the kiln after a firing with a dramatic glaze fluidity. I often enjoy this at a micro level, but this piece immediately evoked more universal connotations of a blue planet floating in space.
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Sandy Hablethwaite
The Oracle 2020
JB3 and BRT clay, fired at cone 6 with a clear glaze and underglazes
45 x 20 x 20 cm
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About the Artist
I am a sculptural artist and when I work with clay I start with no set agenda. My figurines are often reflective of a particular climate or political event, and my media chosen to enhance the narrative.
About the Work
The work is titled The Oracle - a wise person bringing in a prophecy or heralding a new era which is so indicative of our time now. My work involves the mixing of clay bodies and mixed media, and for this piece in particular, I worked with a cone 6 firing.
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Ryan Hancock
Sanguine: Fabulous Fucking Mosquito 2019
Terracotta, maiolica, earthenware
40 x 21 x 45 cm
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About the Artist
Ryan Hancock is a Sydney based visual artist whose work is a meeting of ceramics and contemporary painting.
Riffing on popular culture and shot through with dark humour, expressed always with Hancock’s bold use of colour, form and technique, the result is both immediately comic and complex. As associations between content and form are revealed, layered visual gags find their mark and rewarding details emerge.
About the Work
This work is fan fiction of fan fiction.
It is an itchy mosquito bite, a ruler of highest order but above all else it is Sanguinious.
This work is a dialogue between the intricate worlds created by hobby communities and my own ceramic practice.
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Lyndall Hill
Blue Pear 2020
Buff raku stoneware, Chun glaze, fired in reduction to cone 9
49 x 94 cm circ.
Garden Bowl 2019
Toast stoneware, white tin glaze
12 x 39 cm
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About the Artist
Lyndy Hill is a cermic artist and teacher living at Shute Harbour, overlooking the beautiful islands of the Whitsundays.
Her ceramics career started over fifteen years ago, when she turned sixty and the last of her four children had left school and home. Studying first at TAFE in Moss Vale, and then at the National Art School in Sydney, studying Fine Arts, majoring in Ceramics.
Hill’s work is inspired by the colours and textures of the earth, having grown up on a cattle property in northern NSW. She is heavily influenced by Japanese ceramics and aesthetics as her teacher at Sturt, Mittagong, had studied under a well known sensei from Hagi. She now has a wealth of knowledge of this aesthetic. She is passionate about this art form, and has studied many courses over the years, including in Italy.
Hill has had numerous solo exhibitions over the years and won the sculpture prize at the Art Whitsunday Annual Exhibition.
About Blue Pear
Blue Pear was created using coiled raku clay with a Chun glaze made by the artist herself, fired in reduction to cone 9.
About Garden Bowl
This large bowl for the garden table has three holes in it to help drain the rainwater away. The leaf pattern is one that the artist made as a clay stamp and is used a lot within her garden pieces. The tin glaze makes a lovely glaze on the toast clay from Keanes.
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Lyndall Hill
The Ultimate Hangover Cure 2020
Toast stoneware, white tin glaze
Multiple parts; various dimensions
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About the Work
A tonic made predominately from pear juice plus a little lime juice and coconut water. Scientists found this combination helps the body cleanse itself of alcohol faster than any other food.
The pear is coil built using Keanes toast stoneware. The glaze on this pear is beautifully translucent. It is amazing to have such a dark clay, and a white tin glaze become this affect. The pear was fired in reduction to cone 9.
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Mahala Hill
Armoured Mist Frog 2020
Bone china, porcelain, stoneware, volcanic glaze
8 x 17 x 15 cm
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About the Artist
I love to play in mud. I have vivid memories of making mud pies in my mother’s best Tupperware, heaped to the brim and garnished with weeds. Very little has changed. I still spend almost every day elbow deep, completely covered, in mud.
Mahala Hill is a contemporary ceramic artist, striving to push both the limits and the preconceived notions of her medium. Hill’s practice is discursive in nature; material exploration generates ideas and extends her conceptual intent, bringing to the foreground further questions or conundrums for investigation. In this sense, the process of questioning materials and works directs and informs the next stage of creation. Through her work Hill explores curiosity, wonder, beauty, death, the apocalypse and how by using these motifs she can raise awareness of pressing environmental issues including the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef and the survival of Australian endangered species.
About the Work
A waste environment. An apocalyptic vision. The new normal.
A spectral frog perched on a contaminated geological form, colonising the post-apocalyptic landscape, creating its own new world order. This arthropod embodies the living dead, a ghostly shell of their former self. Constructed by the meaning of and process behind the ‘burn out’– the remnant form after plant matter is asphyxiated in clay and incinerated. Hollow yet uncomfortably resilient, it simultaneously evokes traces of life and loss. This sculpture challenges the anthropocentrism which pervades us, depicting ‘the rest’ as the sole survivors of our inevitable apocalyptic, environmental demise.
I am drawn to the less studied Australian arthropods; they are small yet intricate. Arthropods are not charismatic megafauna, considered useful, or directly beneficial to humans. This anthropocentric gaze prompted me to consider and explore ways in which the plight of these creatures might be represented.
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Ruth Howard
Not titled 2019
Glazed earthenware
12 x 16 x 16 cm
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About the Artist
Ruth Howard has worked in the Arts Project Studios since 1998, and held her first solo show at Arts Project Australia in 2015. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions including Spring 1883, The Establishment, Sydney, Turning the Page, Gallery 101, Ontario, Canada, Hybrid Making – new work from Australia, Canada and Scotland, Project Ability Gallery, Scotland, and Face-Up, Idiom Studio, Wellington, New Zealand.
About the Work
Not titled depicts organic matter in abstract form, the object appearing fossil-like, as if removed directly from the earth or sea. Howard’s continuous dedication to this theme has enabled her to refine her idiosyncratic, bold style to quirky levels of elegance and beauty.
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Janetta Kerr-Grant
The distance between 2020
Porcelain, oxides, ceramic stains, limestone glaze
Two parts; 25 x 31 x 24 cm
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About the Artist
I am inspired by the interconnections between landscape, atmosphere, mood and memory. I make robust elemental ceramic vessels, painting, drawing and carving the surface to express notions of place and longing. I often feel I’m chasing a feeling, the emotional impact that a landscape or environment can exert. Clay provides the ideal medium to convey the conceptual expression of these memories.
Since graduating with 1st Class Honours from RMIT University in 2012, my work has been recognised through awards, commissions, and grants. I have participated in numerous exhibitions across Australia, and have had my work aquired into public collections. In 2013, I received an Australia Council Art Start grant to set up my studio, and in 2018, I was awarded the Klytie Pate Ceramics Award. My fascination with landscape has seen me seek out residencies, from New South Wales to the dense forests of Finland.
About the Work
This work explores the sensory experience of walking in the bush when the light is fading. Brushing past branches and crunching over leaves while looking ahead to the dark silhouetted trees in the distance. Feeling a slight pang of melancholy as the daylight dissolves and shadows lengthen in the late afternoon light.
This pair of porcelain vessels have been coil built and then painted with oxides and stains before being glazed. The vessels have been fired multiple times in a reduction kiln, each time reworking the surface adding some oxide here, painting some more stain there. In refiring the work, I can create a sense of depth and luminosity to my work.
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Anne Kwasner
I Come with Baggage 2019
Upcycled porcelain plates with onglaze paint
Three parts; 27 x 81 cm
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About the Artist
I am a multi-disciplinary artist who has worked across the mediums of printmaking, mixed media, and drawing, and in recent years I have explored ceramics and installation. I recently completed my Masters of Fine Arts at the National Art School, Sydney, recieved the Kiln-it Experimental Studios Art Award, and I was also recently featured in the quarterly issue of Australian Ceramics. I have been exhibiting consistently since 2006, with a strong history of working with independent spaces.
I have been a finalist in the Redlands Art Prize, North Sydney Art Prize, Shoalhaven Contemporary Art Prize, Maitland Art Prize, Rookwood Cemetery ‘Hidden’ Sculpture, and the Hutchins Drawing Prize, and completed the Vytlacil Residency in New York. My work is held in private collections both in Australia and abroad.
About the Work
The 3D of my installation and ceramic pieces merge with 2D printmaking and drawing. My recent work has come as a progression of ideas of dislocation, diaspora, and the melancholy of displacement which have been a strong foundation in my practice.
My work has been focusing on photos of my family re-presented in drawings and plates. The figures, characters in an imagined past, like a documentary re-enactment of the world my parents inhabited before they arrived here.
I Come with Baggage reflects upon the memories and things people choose to take with them and those they leave behind.
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Samuel Leighton-Dore
Sometimes I’m Mean 2019
Hand sculpted earthenware with underglaze
Multiple parts; 200 x 150 x 1 cm
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About the Artist
Samuel Leighton-Dore is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based on the Gold Coast. With a keen interest in mental health and masculinity, Leighton-Dore produces work spanning ceramics, illustration, animation and painting. His book of illustrations, How To Be A Big Strong Man, was released by Smith Street Books through Simon and Schuster in August 2019. His first solo exhibition, Fragile Masculinity, Handle With Care, formed part of this year’s Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival. One of his works (‘Be a Man / I’m Trying’) currently features on the cover of The Australian Journal of Ceramics.
To quote Benjamin Law, Leighton-Dore’s works are a “big-hearted, happily subversive, technicolour-hug”.
About the Work
Produced for my first solo exhibition, Sometimes I’m Mean comprises of eighty-one hand-sculpted ceramic letters and gently probes the thought processes and projections behind our anger, encouraging a slow reflection on our fears while celebrating the vulnerability of honest language and ceramic as a medium.
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Elke Lucas
Porcelain vessels with Peregian Beach bush fire ash glaze 2020
Porcelain clay with ash glaze
Three parts; 15 x 12 cm, 10 x 10 cm, 10 x 8 cm
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About the Artist
After marrying into a family of English potters, Elke Lucas quickly discovered that she had an affinity with clay, and it was here that she served her apprenticeship in the busy creative atmosphere of a working studio pottery. In 2012, Lucas established her pottery studio in Australia, making an extensive range of wheel thrown porcelain with a very strong emphasis on functionality. Working with beautiful Australian clays, she draws inspiration from the landscape and the natural beauty of the place she lives and works – Noosa on the Sunshine Coast. Lucas also draws inspiration from the ceramic traditions of Japan and is becoming increasingly interested in the Japanese ceramic aesthetic. Lucas’ decoration is minimal which allows the elegant shapes of her throwing and the quality of the porcelain to shine through, resulting in pots that carry a natural sophistication and an elegant, quiet presence.
About the Work
Early in September 2019, the Peregian Beach community experienced a fire raging out of control, driven by high winds. Several suburbs had to be evacuated and the blaze left us all with a chill in our bones to what could have happened if it were not for the skilled and tireless efforts of the fire fighters. Much of the wallum areas were devastated, and wildlife suffered. Little did we know that this was a forerunner of a summer when at times it seemed as if much of Australia was on fire.
After the fires subsided, I collected ash from the burnt areas to create a glaze that would be unique to this environment and to the experience. The result was surprising - a beautiful, tactile glaze that I have used on this series of porcelain vessels. Forty percent of the proceeds of this series are donated to Wildcare Australia.
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Dana Lundmark
Homage to Giacometti, 1 and 2 2019
Porcelain, clear gloss glaze, blue glaze, Limoges slip, Limoges inset
Two parts; 30 x 11 x 11 cm
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About the Artist
I have a Diploma in Fine Arts and a background in painting, but when I first touched clay in 2015, I discovered a new medium that felt so natural to me. It gave me the chance to create sculptural and functional objects, allowing me to incorporate years of painting knowledge into three dimensional art.
After only six months of working with clay, I was fortunate to exhibit my first three pieces at Mu Ceramics Studio Gallery, Sydney. I then sought formal training and the result is my completion of Diploma in Ceramics, 2017, and Advanced Diploma in Visual Arts (Ceramics), 2019, where I also received first prize in the Advanced Diploma for graduating students.
I enjoy a variety of techniques such as throwing and hand building, and experimenting with various clays, and my work often incorporates figurative elements.
About the Work
Alberto Giacometti is an artist I have admired for many years and this work, Homage to Giacometti 1 and 2, is my dedication to him and his brilliance. His works have always resonated with me and my artistic pursuits.
On my porcelain vessels I have used Limoges clay to “draw” the figures in bas-relief that are reminiscent of a Giacometti painting or sculpture.
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Holly Macdonald Arches 2020
Terracotta, stained porcelain, porcelain slip, ceramic crayon
26 x 21 x 17 cm
Latticework 2020
Terracotta, stained porcelain, porcelain slip, underglaze, ceramic crayon
15 x 25 x 25 cm
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About the Artist
Holly Macdonald is an emerging artist based in Naarm, Melbourne. Her creative practice is founded in ceramics, and integrates drawing, sculpture and installation. Macdonald’s approach to work is underpinned by ideas of material agency and a sense of collaboration between maker and material. Using the hand-made clay object as a starting point, she explores the collision of uncertainty and architecture, landscape and personal object, in the construction of cultural identity in Australia.
Recent experiences of researching, making work and teaching in unfamiliar places, both in Australia and overseas, have fostered in Macdonald a growing interest in the role of contemporary ceramics in communities and how clay can traverse cultural and linguistic boundaries to facilitate the sharing of experience and knowledge.
About the Work
Is it bad manners to stare at other people’s gardens? To look deeply and with curiosity? A kind of looking that amounts to reading; to read, as if the front garden and facade of a house were a text between me and an unknown you.
Earlier this year as my housemates and I searched for a new rental property, I found myself drawn to these spaces. Furtive glances and blurry photos (is it bad manners?) return to the studio with me. The ceramic vessel gives form to this formless wondering. The surface work of painting, inscribing, cutting into and building up the clay walls and floor borrow from an angular architectural language of fences and screens, doors and windows. Bursts of colour and texture grapple with the upward and outward thrust of plants busily growing. Busily concealing. Arches leans into the tension between what is revealed and what is concealed.
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Marion Gaemers and Lynnette Griffiths
Sedimental horizon 2020
Woodfired, clayworks RSF, Shino glaze, and draped seaweed
180 x 40 cm diam.
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About the Artist
Marion Gaemers and Lynnette Griffiths met through the Flying Arts isolated community program and have collaborated on works since 1994. For the last ten years they have regularly worked on large-scale installations exhibiting internationally.
A love and concern for the coastal region of Far North Queensland, where they work and live, brings them together on a regular basis, for both the connection, ideas, directions and redirections that working together brings and constantly inspires.
Griffiths has a ceramics major from Monash and has been wood firing in various forms since the mid 90s and in Australia’s most northerly bourry box kiln in the Torres Strait for the past eighteen years. Gaemers is a textile artist who works in reclaimed material and plant fibre, her innovative and non-traditional practice spans thirty years. Their collaborations are often large scale but modular in format/construction. Together they create beautifully crafted, yet frighteningly futuristic predictions and snapshots on life and death within the ocean.
About the Work
Stages of growth are measured by an interval in time. Repeating cells create structures and forms which are regulated by external factors.
The two connected trunk like forms in this work have seemingly grown from base to apex, each one with similar markings and structures formed by coral and implements representing bands of growth. One trunk has been inverted to create a single column. The vertical linear form comes from nothing, bulges at the middle with the promise of life and tapers off and withers to spherical, single cell like structures.
The ocean rope, part of a massive mooring line from a passing cargo liner, binds the structure with a repeated organic motif leading the viewer to believe in the promise of rapidly forming new life.
The work is strengthened by the processes that each artist brings – predominantly made from the earth, then solidified in time by twenty-four hours of elemental fire – all life begins small, blooms, withers and dies leaving a structure that a strange new life can flourish on.
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Keiko Matsui
The Splash Moon 2019
Mixed stoneware, glazes, oxide, silver and gold kintsugi powder
33 x 33 x 40 cm
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About the Artist
Keiko Matsui is a Japanese born, Melbourne based ceramic artist, who creates functional and decorative objects. Matsui moved to Australia in 1999 and was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) degree in 2006 from the National Art School in Sydney.
Matsui’s oeuvre ranges from bowls to sculpture, however her sculptural vessel series is one of her ongoing projects where she values utilitarian objects as a part of art.
Matsui had her first solo exhibition at Sturt Gallery in Mittagong in 2012, after exhibiting in group shows since 2003. Her recent achievements include the Gosford Art Prize (winner, 2018, 2014, 2012), Vitrify Alcorso Ceramic Award (finalist, 2013), John Fries Memorial Award (finalist, 2011), the Small Art Object Prize in Vallauris, France (winner, 2009), the North Queensland Ceramic Awards (finalist, 2018, 2016, 2014, 2010, 2004) and the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize (Viewer’s Choice Award, 2008).
About the Work
The moon represents powerful feminine energy. It signifies wisdom, intuition, birth, death, and a spiritual connection. I think the reason I find the moon so alluring is because it is an eternally beautiful object.
The Splash Moon is a sculptural vessel combining strong Japanese aesthetics, WABI (subdued, austere beauty) SABI (rustic patina), and YOU-NO-BI (beauty in utilitarian objects). It endeavours to express the light (splashes of gold kintsugi pigment) and the darkness (dark bronze glaze running) of the moon while incorporating the shape of a female’s pudendum as a base. The silver part on the base is not the shadow of the moon above, yet it is enticing the viewer to ponder.
You may feel like standing in the universe after contemplating this artwork by walking in a full circle.
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Suvira McDonald
Ritual accessories 2020
Woodfired porcelain, shino
glaze interior, carbon trapping on rim and random flashing
Two parts; 9 x 16 x 30 cm
Variations on a Theme 2019
Various clays, feldpathic glazes
Three parts; 34 x 52 x 30 cm
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About the Artist
Suvira McDonald’s work incorporates multiple ceramic techniques and disciplines, and has produced a broad range of ceramics over the past thirty years. McDonald fires his work with wood or gas, maintaining an extensive palette of reduction glazes.
His work explores the theme of the landscape in not only visual terms but of materiality; the study of form and relevant surface treatments occupying his utmost attention.
His versatility has rendered him a practitioner who has been endlessly innovative in his work for decades. With an individual and tireless creative force, he has been influenced by Asian traditions, his Australian peers and teachers, as well as the operative market requirements of the time.
He studied at Lismore TAFE and Southern Cross University, attaining his Masters Degree in 2000. He has a long exhibition history including as a curator and has project managed the installation of large sculptural works. His work is in collections worldwide and has freelance tutored extensively.
About Ritual accessories
Ritual accessories consists of two pieces which are wheel thrown and altered whilst still on the wheel head. The pourer has a whimsical form whilst the bowl has a more formal aspect. The personalities are different but they are bound together by the treatment by the fire over the three days. The edges have exquisitely trapped carbon and with random flashing on the protected parts. The exterior surface is all flame born ash deposit. I used an Anagama kiln for the firing. Anagama is the japanese term for a ‘cave kiln’ or an excavated kiln, constructed and reburied, tunnel-like in the hillside. The fire rushes through the kiln, layering ash and causing a variety of gaseous and flame-induced firemarks on the ceramic surface.
My work revisits traditional approaches to pottery, partly through my love for the physicality and the raw fire of the process, but also for the magic of the results. We might describe it as an aesthetics-driven pyromania.
About Variations on a Theme
This trio of pieces echo the beautiful and bizarre forms of ikebana, the Japanese art of floral sculpture.
The surfaces allude to landscape, geology and a ‘micro-tectonic’ visual language exclusive to woodfired ceramics, and the complexity of which is born out of the intense three-day Anagama firing.
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Anne Mossman
Untitled 2020
Coloured, polished porcelain
18 x 19 x 13 cm
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About the Artist
Anne Mossman came to ceramics relatively late in her career. After retiring from a corporate marketing position, she enrolled in the Diploma of Ceramics at the Australian National University, Canberra, which she completed in 2007.
She was inspired by the work of Dorothy Feibleman, one of the course’s visiting tutors, and has continued to develop work involving coloured clay patterning utilised as inlays, nerikomi vessels, and embedded in slip casted vessels. Inspiration for Mossman’s work comes from many places including geologic strata and eucalypti bark patterning.
Mossman has continued her education mainly through workshops across Australia with local and international artists, and has developed and provides workshops on colouring clay at the Gold Coast Potters Association.
Mossman successfully exhibits work in ceramicsspecific awards around Australia, and has won several of these prizes. Her work is held in the collections of galleries and private collectors.
About the Work
Mossman’s vessels are inspired by layering found in geologic strata.
The variation and often unpredictability of the patterning is a key aspect in developing the vessels using the Japanese Nerikomi technique.
Porcelain is coloured and layered into large blocks. The blocks are sliced into multiple slabs and then joined into one big flat piece. Rows are then cut and repositioned to make a new slab. This repositioning provides some control of the patterning. Although the variations are still evident, the controlled placement of the rows can introduce a wilful meandering in the finished patterning of the vessel.
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Catherine Ogden
George II 2019
Porcelain paper clay, iron and copper oxides
44 x 36 x 21 cm
Hares 2020
Terracotta with white porcelain slip
Two parts; 40 x 30 x 15 cm, 24 x 37 x 14 cm
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About the Artist
Catherine Ogden is a Townsville based artist who works across a variety of styles including domestic ware and sculptural pieces. Her love of learning leads to her constant experimenting with clay bodies, glazes and building techniques.
About George II
George II is built up from small slabs of stretched clay. He has a quiet presence like a friend who is a good listener.
About Hares
A simple change of position or gesture can convey a multitude of relationships and in doing so stories emerge. In Hares a tension exists however they are positioned. The inanimate objects feel as if they will suddenly spring to life and run away.
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Warren Ogden
Four Tall Bottles 2020
BRT and white raku, soft white stoneware
Four parts; 71 x 16 cm each
Monolith 2020
BRT, blue/purple stoneware glaze
43 x 30 x 16 cm
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About the Artist
Warren Ogden has been potting for approximately eight years, and enjoys hand building both for the process and the aesthetic. He enjoys how the clay communicates with him as to where it wants to go, allowing it to naturally follow its own form. Ogden finds peace working under a tree in his backyard.
About Four Tall Bottles
Warren Ogden’s pots are coil built. He uses two different clays of different colours layered on top of one another to create a striped effect. Each band is one coil. The pots are then glazed. The contrast becomes apparent due to the higher amount of iron in one of the clays.
About Monolith
This pot reminds me of a rock sticking out of the ground. The glaze enhances that idea. It is one of my favourite shapes.
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Soo Hyun Park
Captured moment series - 1 2019
High fired stoneware, bronze colour glaze
21 x 23 x 23 cm
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About the Artist
My work originates from my keen interest in people’s unique individuality, formed through their past, present, and future experiences. The dynamics of various human relationships and how those are reflected in nature, both positively and negatively, also influence what I produce.
I believe there is so much organic beauty in nature. My focus has not been on distorting it, but finding connections within it that produce natural and sometimes artificial synergy. The constantly evolving relationship and interaction between nature and the human world have given me a lot of inspiration in my work.
Timing is so important in our lives. Being able to capture a moment and even layer various moments together through pottery gives me tremendous joy. My intention is to create work that replicates that joy and add even just a little bit of positivity to whoever views it.
About the Work
There is significant tension in the wild, especially for herbivores. This is no different for the ibex, which lives in steep terrain and uses its fierce horns to defend its territory.
Much like the ibex, our lives are often filled with tension and challenges. But there are moments during our busy daily lives when we find peace and tranquility. This work has tried to capture such a moment, through the anthropomorphic representation of an ibex smiling. The smile, however, has been purposely designed to portray a variety of states – from day dreaming to genuine happiness. Another representation for this work, which is personal to the artist, is respect for wildlife.
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Soo Hyun Park
Captured moment series - 2 2020
High fired stoneware, ceramic underglaze
39 x 38 x 21 cm
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About the Work
There is significant tension in the wild, especially for herbivores. This is no different for the water buffalo, which uses its fierce horns to defend itself and its territory.
Much like the water buffalo, our lives are often filled with tension and challenges. But there are moments during our busy daily lives when we find peace and tranquility. In an anthropomorphic expression, the water buffalo is seen to be smiling, content with its brief moment of peace during its day.
This work plays with contrast. The stark contrast in colour coupled with the contrast in strength between the buffalo and the butterflies have been utilised to emphasise the theme – a moment of peace during what can often be a dark and harsh day. Another representation for this work, which is personal to the artist, is respect for wildlife.
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Julie Pennington
White II 2020
Unglazed Keanes mid fire Lumina porcelain
28 x 10 x 10 cm
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About the Artist
Julie Pennington is a ceramic artist based in Canberra. Her methodically crafted vessels and sculptural works are characterised by her distinctive and innovative approach to the enduring technique of coil building.
Pennington predominately utilises the medium of porcelain, working slowly and methodically to investigate the subtleties and complexities of pattern and texture. This work is underpinned by her early experiences of textiles, drawing and printmaking. Pennington’s career in the visual arts began in the field of Textile Design, before pursuing her interest in ceramics and completing a Diploma of Ceramics at Moss Vale TAFE in 2010.
Pennington has been selected and invited to exhibit nationally and internationally, and has undertaken residencies in Australia and overseas.
About the Work
White II is hand built using the technique of coiling, however instead of blending the coils, each coil is textured and carefully joined together with slip to retain the pattern on the exterior and interior of the piece.
The textured lines of clay are not dissimilar to thread or yarn, giving a sense of softness to the otherwise hard clay surface. I enjoy the direct engagement of working with my hands and the challenge of not using trimming or smoothing tools. In this way the immediate activity of making is vital to the outcome of the finished work.
I am drawn to the cylindrical vessel form, for me it embodies my observations and reflections on tree trunks which I encounter on my daily walks. The unglazed porcelain surface accentuates the textural qualities and allows light conditions to bring variation to the surface.
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Nigel Perera
Untitled 2020
Terracotta clay with aventurine glaze
40 x 20 x 20 cm
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About the Artist
I initially learned wheel throwing at Cairns TAFE under the guidance of Kerry Grierson, and within my first year was working as a production potter which allowed me to develop my skills on the wheel. I continued this occupation for two years before I stopped due to life circumstances. After a hiatus of over ten years I’ve returned to pottery and have started producing work again.
About the Work
I quite enjoy throwing larger pieces and this particular work was thrown in two then joined. I have an infatuation with aventurine glazes and have continued my experimentation with this piece.
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Kirsten Perry
Reflections of a golden light in my garden 2020
Mid-fire slip cast ceramic, glaze, gold lustre
Two parts; 30 x 25 x 23 cm
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About the Artist
I am a Melbourne based ceramic artist with a background in Fine Art (Gold & Silversmithing), Industrial Design, and Multimedia. I am a selftaught ceramicist, predominately slip casting mid-fired functional and non-functional vessels that pay homage to traditional ceramics. My bio-morphic objects are initially carved from disposable materials such as foam, then translated into ceramics. This translation shows evidence of my process and highlights the texture of the foam. I often exaggerate imperfection and am attracted to flaws and vulnerabilities. The objects have an unusual beauty — what I imagine to be some sort of living organism from a planet far away. The translation from foam to brittle ceramic adds an edible softness that’s somewhat dreamlike.
About the Work
I experiment with casting different materials such as cardboard and foam. I’m interested in materials not usually associated with clay that have different structural properties. Paper is thin and can be easily folded. Foam can be easily carved and has a very interesting texture. Casting these throw away materials in clay brings two different worlds together to make a unique object. The soft, light foam is translated into heavy, brittle ceramic. I’m interested in the sum of parts being more than the parts added together.
These two strange flowers are what grow in my imagination. The gold lustre glaze highlights the curve of the dripping glaze and the petals of an open flower.
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Megan Puls
SURGE series 2018
Pierced Lumina porcelain and recycled clays, once fired to 1300°C 33 x 18 cm
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About the Artist
Inspired by the natural landscape, particularly the extraordinary and ever-changing world of the wetlands, I am constantly creating, experimenting, and pushing boundaries. Each of my vessels tells the story of nature. Organic in shape. Quiet in manner. They evoke the beauty and complexity of our fragile ecosystem.
About the Work
SURGE series is stack thrown on the wheel, pierced, and once fired. I have used Lumina porcelain and recycled clays, and in my choice of medium, I hope to invoke images of an ocean surge.
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Mandy Roe
Reef Solace 2020
Glazed stoneware
10 x 33 x 28 cm
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About the Artist
After completing a Bachelor of Arts and Graduate Diploma in Interior Design, my postuniversity career has been in the vocational education sector, and only recently have I been able to devote time to art. In 2019, I joined a pottery beginner class with North Stradbroke Island Art & Pottery Club and learned pinch potting, slab building, slip casting and thawing, and am currently on a steep learning curve.
I recently entered my first ceramic competition, the Muswellbrook Art Prize 2020, and was selected as a finalist. My hope is to be able to slowly shift to becoming a full-time professional ceramic artist.
About the Work
The Great Barrier Reef, one of Earth’s remarkable gifts.
Fragile corals support a tapestry of colourful marine life. Angel fish fade into deep turquoise depths, clown fish dart about, butterflyfish and sea turtles swim as they have for many thousands of years; beauty is diversity.
As the impacts of humanity bleach, suffocate and diminish; the breath of the reef slows and weakens.
In this work, unglazed stoneware forms bleached coral. While in contrast colourful under glazes and glazes portray the hope of life.
It is not too late to heal the reef before it fades along with humanity; the choice is yours and mine.
One can take solace in that the Earth and her ecosystems will continue to evolve, with or without us.
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Mandy Roe
Vase of Cultural Earth 2020
Unglazed porcelain and stoneware
15 x 17 x 17 cm
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About the Work
Practicing within a community pottery studio, our group is fortunate to have access to multiple earth mediums and techniques drawn from various cultures.
Vase of Cultural Earth is a convergence of mediums that manifested as a vase, only using earth material nothing else. The kiln was fired to 1280 degrees celsius, giving the ceramic its unique, true texture and waterproof qualities.
This work incorporates six types of porcelain and stoneware applied in layers. The intricate designs of the vase employ techniques like those seen in Nerikomi (ancient Japanese ceramics), African Swazi candles, Thousand Flowers, and Italian glass art known as Millefiori. By utilising these artful techniques upon on the vase, a simple, powerful, and honest multiculture signature has formed.
The vase celebrates a hoped-for society without borders and the artful cultural traditions of humans of this world.
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Pilar Rojas
Linked 2019
Southern Ice porcelain and sterling silver, underglaze pencil drawings, unglazed
Five parts; various dimensions
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About the Artist
Pilar Rojas is an award winning artist based in Melbourne, who has trained in several countries, completed the Design Ceramics course at Harrow College of Art, UK and a Master of Fine Art in Melbourne.
She has exhibited widely in Melbourne as well as interstate, and her work has appeared in numerous publications and is included in several public collections.
About the Work
Linked is a series of small hand made objects; a few beads from a larger necklace, extracts from a larger collective history. My intention with this piece was to create a poetic narrative through hand made objects, avoiding monumentality.
Linked refers to the intimate relationship that we can have with such small, everday items such as tools, implements, containers, and adornments, that are used as an extension of our bodies, and yet for the maker, they are often a reflection and extension of the self.
Ceramics is also a universal language that has been spoken throughout history and has had a unifying quality. It has the capacity to connect us all inside its collective memory.
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Ebony Russell
Piped Dreams: Golden Ballerina Dream Set 2019
Piped and slipcast Jingdezhen porcelain, stain, glaze, and PVD lustre
Two parts; 26 x 30 x 18 cm, 25 x 25 x 25 cm
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About the Artist
Ebony Russell is an Australian ceramic artist and recent graduate of The National Art School, Sydney, where she completed a Masters of Fine Arts in the discipline of Ceramics. In 2018, Russell was a finalist in the biennial Sydney Living Museum Meroogal Women’s Art Prize, and was awarded first place in the International Franz Rising Star Award for excellence in porcelain which resulted in a residency in Jingdezhen, China. More recently, her work has been selected as a finalist in the 2019 Muswellbrook Art Prize, the 2019 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, and again as a finalist in the 2019 Franz Rising Star Award
Russell has developed a way of working with porcelain that has allowed her to create forms that seem to defy their own making while incorporating confessional and autobiographical elements into her artworks, and recreating her lived experience through a feminised craft.
About the Work
Piped Dreams: Golden Ballerina Dream Set explores desire, longing, and notions of nostalgia. These sculptures incorporate techniques and processes traditionally used in cake decorating. The saccharine embellishment and delicate layers are intensified and given permanence with the use of high-fired porcelain. The overwhelming pull of desire is symbolised in the smothering layer of gold lustre.
Focusing on decoration as my main form of construction, I recreate my childhood dreams. Mimicking the elaborate decoration of a dessert or celebratory cake, these dreamlike environments appear to defy gravity while simultaneously bearing the heavyweight of desire.
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Ebony Russell
Piped Dreams: Horseshoe Empty Grotto (A Place To Put Your Dreams) 2019
Piped Lumina porcelain and stain
39 x 35 x 46 cm
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About the Work
Decadent flourishes and swirls of finely detailed piped icing form an environment for flowers, butterflies, and a lone gastropod to inhabit. The Virgin Mary stands on a precipice drawing you closer, yearning for an intimate connection. Crevices and gorges are created in the layers of pink ombré ribbons. These grottos are spaces for secrets and private shrines. Hollows for memories lost, forgotten promises, dreams, desires and longings. It is here in these artificial landscapes of kitsch, romanticised and infantile desires that I return again and again.
Utilising a labour-intensive practice informed by craft and immortalised with the permanent medium of porcelain, I work to understand myself and create personal narratives. As I make these objects, I meditate over what draws me back and this gives me the power to release the past and focus on a new future. Transcendence through reverie.
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Ebony Russell
Piped Dreams: Pink Ombré Canyon (What are little girls made of?) 2019
Piped Lumina porcelain, stain, glaze, and lustre
55 x 35 x 40 cm
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About the Work
Piped Dreams: Pink Ombré Canyon (What are little girls made of?) explores narrative as the basis to engage with personal and collective experiences of gender identity. The canyon is formed from the term ‘What are little girls made of?’, this text creates the foundation for a mise en abyme that suggests an infinitely recurring sequence of gender performativity to create identity. The canyon formation is juxtaposed with the phrase reflected in the mirror at the base of the perspex plinth upon which it sits. I create artworks that respond to aspects of my experience, focusing on the personal connection to objects through childhood reverie, identity, and contemporary collecting practices.
I am interested in exploring the potency of memory and art’s potential to transform the everyday into the extraordinary and unexpected.
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Arun Sharma
My Heart Swells 2019
Unglazed stoneware torso, wood fired heart
17 x 9 x 18 cm
Untitled (fragmented child torso) 2018
Stoneware 20 x 9 x 30 cm
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About the Artist
Arun Sharma was born and raised in New York State. He holds an MA in Ceramics from University of Wales Institute, UK (2011), a MFA from the University of Washington, USA (2009), and a BFA from Alfred University, USA (2001). Sharma has lived and worked as an artist in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, and the UK, where he was awarded a US-UK Fulbright grant to research the Fragmented Figure at the National Center for Ceramic Studies at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff. Sharma has received numerous grants, awards, and residencies, nationally and internationally, and has been invited to lecture and teach at universities across the UK, USA, and Australia. Arun Sharma now lives in Sydney and continues to exhibit his artwork nationally and internationally.
About My Heart Swells
Birth, death, and the complex, messy life we live in between is the subject of my visual arts practice. My mostly autobiographical artwork uses a wide range of media that incorporates various sculpture materials such as clay and plaster, as well as video, and photography. I create self-expressive artwork that reveals the truth about my nature, feelings, and thoughts about an idea, or reflection on an experience I had in a way that others can relate to. I show these themes visually through the fragmented figure. Recently I have been working on ideas for (re)generation where elements of birth or rebirth have been emerging.
My Heart Swells is comprised of a cast of my son’s torso and a hand-built, wood-fired heart. Looking at my son, my family, and myself as an artist, I try to take heart and move forward, especially in these uncertain times.
About Untitled (fragmented child torso)
This fragmented child torso helps me think about the past and contemplate the future.
The sculpture comes from a cast of my son’s torso, which unexpectedly blew up in the kiln.
All at once the piece serves as a metaphor for the plans we make in life that go awry, the passage of time, and our ability to find beauty in imperfection.
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Arun Sharma
Untitled 2018
Stoneware with white and black stain matte glaze
Two parts; 41 x 20 x 20 cm, 35 x 18 x 18 cm
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About the Work
This pair of sculptural vessels came from my interest in the figure. As a figurative sculptor and a ceramicist, I am interested in the long historical relationships between clay, the vessel, and the human form. It is compelling to see how the form and/or surface informs the identity of each vessel and then how the pair of vessels interact with each other.
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Minji Song
Respicere (A set of four double-walled vases) 2019
Recycled clay and stoneware glazes
Four parts; 13 x 40 x 10 cm
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About the Artist
Most of my works are thrown on a wheel, and often explore a variety of shapes and colour. I create ceramic objects reflecting my effort to step out of myself and be able to look further, and overall live a conscious life.
About the Work
This set of four double-walled vases were thrown on a wheel then carved when they were hard. The gap between the profile outlines represents the effort of human beings to look for meaning in life and themselves. It also reflects the emptiness of the mind and thoughts that we create in everyday life.
In this modern time, I feel that it is extremely hard to pause and look at ourselves. It is hard know who we are and what we really want with all the distractions we are surrounded by. It is rather easy to neglect ourselves and pay attention to other things that are easier to consume.
This work is my wish for myself and everyone to take time and look at ourselves with respect.
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Richard John Spoehr
Absence 2019
Southern Ice porcelain, yellow reduction fired glaze cone 10 Three parts; 16 x 18 x 42 cm
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About the Artist
My practice is primarily focused on the vessel, as an existential essence of my being, combining the sensitivities of the hand, brain, and inner desire to bring ideas into form.
Although functional forms are my starting point, they are veiled with references from history and acknowledgements of past makers. Ceremony or simple daily ritual, states of change are ever present, and thus the objects are ‘frozen’ in time.
The most challenging aspects of my work is to be mindful of the pursuit of simplicity, paring away that which is not necessary yet still giving voice to something inanimate that resonates with the viewer.
About the Work
Three strategically placed objects sit silent. There is an overwhelming desire to reach out and touch, but you cannot. You ponder on such questions as ‘how does the rim of the cup feel on the lips’, and ‘is the weight of each object as I’d expect for its mass and size’.
The absence of that physical sensory connection (denying one to touch, to feel, to experience) forces one to focus on the visual. The complexities of functionality and beauty is what drives me to create.
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Jack Staley
Light House 2019
Earthenware and glaze
32 x 18.5 x 18.5 cm
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About the Artist
Working from my studio in Sunshine Beach, I am inspired by the coast around me, integrating things I find or see to provide form and surface texture for my pieces. The process of creating sculpture has been a therapeutic journey, allowing me to tap into my subconscious and explore without limits.
About the Work
I create abstract ceramic sculptures which have been constructed through the process of being thrown and hand built, incorporating a range of methods like coiling, rolling out slabs, pinching, and surface manipulations. This allows my pieces to slowly take on a life of their own, primitive and alien like.
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Simon Suckling
African Tulip Bowl 2020
Lumina porcelain with clear glaze and underglaze decoration, 1240°C 8 x 35 x 35 cm
Native Rosella Bowls 2020
Keanes Lumina porcelain, clear glaze with underglaze decal
Four parts, 8 x 15 x 15 cm each
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About the Artist
Simon Suckling is a Brisbane-based ceramic artist working in porcelain. He is a graduate of the ceramics department at the University of Southern Queensland, and holds a Master of Arts degree from Monash University in Melbourne.
Suckling’s works are handmade on the potter’s wheel using the finest porcelain clay, with surface pattern created using a combination of hand-coloured silkscreened underglaze decals, as well as bespoke handmade onglaze decals produced in his studio. His works are finished with the application of gold lustre.
His inspiration comes from the natural environment, with botanical imagery drawn directly from plant life surrounding his Bardon Studio.
About African Tulip Bowl
The African tulip tree (spathodea companulata) is regarded as a significant environmental weed and is a declared pest plant species in Brisbane. It speaks to the fragile nature of our native ecology and how desiring what is seductive and beautiful is not always in our best interests.
About Native Rosella Bowls
Hibiscus heterophyllus, also known as Native Rosella, is a species of hibiscus that is endemic to New South Wales and Queensland. Contrary to its popular name it is an introduced plant species.
This work titled, Native Rosella Bowls, is a set of four thrown and altered serving bowls featuring an underglaze silk screen decal of a Native Rosella, hand drawn from an image.
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Simon Suckling
Spathodea Vase 2020
Keanes Lumina porcelain clear glaze
35 x 20 x 20 cm
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About the Work
The African tulip tree (spathodea companulata) is regarded as a significant environmental weed and is a declared pest plant species in Brisbane. It speaks to the fragile nature of our native ecology and how desiring what is seductive and beautiful is not always in our best interests.
Spathodea Vase is wheel thrown porcelain with underglaze, hand silk screened onglaze decals, and 12 carat gold luster.
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Ellen Terrell
Carved Bowenia lustre bowl 2020
White stoneware clay, glaze fired to 1200°C, silver and copper reduced lustre pigments
8 x 30 cm
Pair lustre plates ‘Bowenia spectablis’ & ‘Licuala ramsayi’ 2020
White stoneware clay, glaze fired to 1200°C, silver and copper reduced lustre pigments
Two parts; 5 x 25 cm each
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About the Artist
I have been living and working as a professional potter in Daintree since 1983. The bulk of my work is thrown on the wheel, using porcelain and stoneware clays, then carving right through the clay or scratching patterns through coloured clay slips in a technique called ‘sgraffito’.
Around 2006, I began experimenting with lustre pigments made from silver and copper. I later worked with Bob Connery as my mentor, at Stokers Siding, NSW. I now make my own pigments, firing a third time to adhere the lustre to the already glazed pots. I must admit that working with the lustre pigments has become very close to an addiction for me! Making the pigments, decorating with them and firing can be time consuming and finicky but the results give me a richness I am not able to achieve in any other way.
About Carved Bowenia lustre bowl
I live and work in the tangled profusion which is the Daintree rainforest. A storehouse of shapes and patterns provided by plants, many with an ancient history. Endless inspiration when decorating pots!
Carved Bowenia lustre bowl features a primitive cycad, thought to be the world’s smallest cycad. Still growing in the forest here, little changed from its ancestors of Jurassic times.
About Pair lustre plates ‘Bowenia spectablis’ & ‘Licuala ramsayi’
This pair of plates is a combination of ancient and new, in a more botanically correct format. Bowenia spectablis again, paired with Licuala ramsayi, the much loved Fan Palm - a modern day flowing plant.
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Mark Thompson
Tall Blue Boy: NOT Gainsborough 2020
Earthenware, dry engobe and gold lustre
125 x 35 x 25 cm
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About the Artist
A co-mixing of art forms has created a fertile source of imagery to conjure with. Working as a designer in theatre and opera forces one to examine more than history or style; all of the creative platforms are at work. This vast array of visual information is the grist for this mill. In theatre design, nothing is off limits as a source, this freedom to explore, to appropriate and to extrapolate from, is essential so as to provide as many reference points for an audience. This familiarity with the work of others is referenced repeatedly.
The rebellion of youth fades and an awareness of the intransigence of a life, the need to make marks and objects, takes precedence. A day away from this is a chance lost.
About the Work
The challenge of near-lifesize works and kiln size always dictates novel compromises in the making. That, and the vagaries of weather and clay, all make for interesting solutions.
The idea behind the piece is to present a solo male form, devoid of any attire yet alluding to a secret narrative that the viewer might construct.
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Elizabeth Tillack
Feathered Friends 2020
Paper clay, painted oxide decoration, raw gazed, electric firing at 1150°C fire glaze
Multiple parts; 140 x 120 x 10 cm
Still Life from the Sea 2020
Paper clay, colored oxides, raw glaze
reduction fired to 1150°C
Multiple parts; 20 x 60 x 50 cm
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About the Artist
I studied Fine Arts at the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education in the 1970s, majoring in ceramics, and have worked as a production potter for the last forty years, specialising in domestic ware. The last few years I have slowed down and now make one-off sculptural pieces.
My surroundings are my inspiration; I like to experiment with different subjects from nature and life. I now hand build using earthenware paper clay and firing to 1100°C, using both gas and electric kilns.
About Feathered Friends
There are eight hundred and thirty small bird species in Australia. They delight us every day going about their business in our gardens and the bush. I have used four different sizes and shapes to represent a stylised version of some of these birds.
I have hand painted each of the individual designs so no two birds are the same. Cobalt brushwork is painted onto green ware, then raw glazed and fired in an electric kiln to 1100°C.
The birds are wired to a little twig and suspended in the air where they naturally sway to and fro with the breeze.
Each is separate and can be unhooked from each other.
About Still Life from the Sea
I love the ocean and have been very lucky to have always lived by it. It is my natural setting. Now, the Great Barrier Reef is on my doorstep and I am privileged to be able to walk beside it every day.
Shells coat the shoreline, living still as things of beauty. Seagulls (scavengers of the sea) are delightful in the way they sit on the sand at dawn, facing the horizon, watching the sun come up before spending the day hunting for whatever takes their fancy.
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Carlin Tolver
Spirit Man 2019
Fine white clay with Orca
50 x 20 x 14 cm
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About the Artist
As of a very young age I had a love of sculpture. I began sculpting whilst involved with the Atherton Tablelands Art Society. After moving to Townsville for high school I joined the Townsville Potters Association who had all the materials I needed to continue sculpting.
I studied Raku techniques with Local Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Elders through the ATSI Art program at TAFE. I then joined the Melbourne Visionary Art Network and travelled to Indonesia to learn more about Visionary artforms. This is the realm I have chosen to express my story.
About the Work
Spirit Man is an apprentice, a traveller, a healer, an awakened being to all things in nature and magic. His wisdom comes from ancestral knowledge passed down through the Divine.
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Tatsuya Tsutsui
Tree and Boat 2019
Porcelain, clear glaze, gosu, chrome green and iron underglaze
22.5 x 26 cm
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About the Artist
Tatsuya Tsutsui is a traditionally trained porcelain artist from Arita, Kyushu, Japan, working in this medium for over forty years.
After completing a degree in Visual Art, specialising in oil painting in 1974 at Musashino Art University, Tsutsui worked in various sculpture studios in Musashisakai, Tokyo. In 1978-81 he attended Arita College of Ceramics where he was taught by throwing master and national living treasure, Inoue Manji. While attending Arita College, Tsutsui also worked for potter Matsuo Shigetoshi.
In 1986 Tsutsui opened his studio, Tatsuya Kobo, in Nakadaru Pottery Village, Arita.
Tsutsui is a selected member of both the Arita Ceramic Association and Issuikai Ceramic Association, as well as now being a member of Ceramic Arts Queensland.
About the Work
Tree and Boat is a visual representation of an exploration into the inner peace and tranquility that can be achieved through meditation and nature.
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John Tuckwell
We stopped the Clouds 2020
Australian porcelain, unglazed exterior, clear glaze interior
Three parts; 58 x 12 x 9 cm, 41 x 17 x 7 cm, 46 x 10 x 7 cm
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About the Artist
John Tuckwell has been working with clay since 1992. Initially working with low fired clays making sculptural pieces while studying at ANU in Canberra, his art has since evolved to specialise in porcelain slip constructions, a technique he is now best known for.
Tuckwell has a successful practice that has seen him exhibit in more than sixty group and solo exhibtions, and his work is held in collections throughout Australia and overseas.
About the Work
I make work in porcelain, and for many years my dominant and recurring source has been the landscape. Most of my work is in the form of a vessel with the outer face providing an area to work on.
My favourite place that has supplied me with a vast amount of raw artistic material is Cathedral Rock National Park. Last year, Cathedral Rock was burnt to a crisp. Other forests near me in Northern NSW, which have no history of fire, have likewise been destroyed.
I’m not sure that a political answer can be everything. We 7.8 billion all share the cause. We stopped the Clouds is about collective responsibility.
I just want to continue making work in porcelain.
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Lone White
Sparkling rainforest form 2020
Paper clay made from various clay bodies and chrome glazes
24 x 24 cm
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About the Artist
I have played with clay and glazes for over forty years and during most of that time I have lived in Cairns. A lot of my ceramic art works have been inspired by my surrounds - the reef and rainforest.
For the last few years I have been working on a series called The Rainforest - colours, textures and forms. I have wanted to give my pots texture and movement. To do that, I have been using paper clay which makes it possible to make intricate forms related to seeds, bark, etc. After experimenting with various glazes, I have developed a matte chrome glaze with various amounts of chrome oxide to give my shapes and forms the changing colours of the rainforest and a certain glitter. All the ceramic artworks have been fired in oxidation at varying temperatures from 1200 to 1280°C.
About the Work
My latest rainforest form was hand made with paper clay, which I also make myself, came out of the firing different to what was expected. I used several chrome glazes with different percentages of oxides, sprayed the glazes on the pot and fired it in a small kiln I use for my chrome glazes to 1250°C in oxidation, as they tend to volatilise at high temperature.
Normally I get a few sparkles on my chrome glazed pots however this time when I took the pot out it was darker than expected and in the sunshine or under light, it kept sending out light and sometimes green sparkles.
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Narelle White
A · B · C · D · E 2019
Artist’s clay body, porcelain, organic matter (combusted)
Five parts; various dimensions
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About the Artist
Through a sensitive engagement with the intelligibility of matter, Narelle White creates porous assemblies of ceramic material. She finds joy in the messy unpredicility of ceramic experimentation, and aspires to a distinctive materiality that is imbued with the memory of its making. White holds a BA, MA and BFA, including studies at The Rhode Island School of Design. She was recently in residence at the European Ceramic Work Centre as a beneficiary of an Ian Potter Cultural Trust grant. White has received the Clayworks’ Award for Excellence in Ceramics, and been shortlisted for the Manningham Ceramic Art Award and Wyndham Contemporary Art Prize. Her work will appear in London Craft Week 2020.
About the Work
A · B · C · D · E is a fragment of dance in hieroglyphic form. With the lyricism of musical notes, its figures present a language that is decipherable as rhythm, gesture, and repetition. Created in residence at the Kingston Arts Ceramic Centre, their textural bodies are an experimental blend of porcelain, granular aggregates, and combusted organic matter. Together they capture the artist’s interest in material agency and the poetics of ceramic process.
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Cecily Willis
Naked Raku Vase 2019
Naked raku fired stoneware
21 x 59 cm diam.
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About the Artist
I have been ‘potting’ for approximately twenty years. I first began by attending classes at Gymea TAFE in Sydney, but a move to Maningrida in Arnhem Land, NT, meant that my work with clay was put on hold for fourteen years. This was while I worked as a Teacher Linguist and Assistant Principal for the Education Department.
I enjoy creating functional tableware on the wheel and making sculptural forms using hand-building techniques. My interest in glaze development is evident in many of my recent works.
I have twice been a finalist in the biennial North Queensland Ceramic Awards, 2016 and 2018. My pieces exhibited in the 2016 Awards were acquired by Townsville City Council and featured as the hero artwork on the exhibition invitations for Form, an exhibition of ceramics from the City of Townsville Art Collection, 2018. In 2016, I was featured in the April edition of The Journal of Australian Ceramics
I enjoy teaching ‘Throwing on the Wheel’ classes at Tactile Arts in Darwin and have been doing so for more than ten years. I sell my work in numerous Darwin retail outlets and participate in several craft fairs each year.
About the Work
In naked raku, the surface you see and touch is actually the ‘skin’ of the ceramic vessel. It is the glaze and slip applied in order to create patterning and design, and it shells off at the final stage of the firing process, leaving the silken texture and colour variations of the burnished ceramic piece unveiled. The heavy carbonisation of the clay yields a wide range of surfaces.
I love the variations of colour and finishes that are natural characteristics of the naked raku process – that’s what lends the piece its value and is the guarantee of a totally handmade process.
This piece is made with wheel thrown white stoneware and naked raku fired in my back yard garbage bins. Great fun!
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Cecily Willis
Striped Pyjamas 2020
Red stoneware clay and low fired dry glaze
Two parts; 26 x 26 x 9.5 cm, 21 x 21 x 8 cm
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About the Work
When we talk about pots, we give them human characteristics – they have a lip, neck, shoulder, belly, and a foot.
I love that we use these terms to talk about the shape of vessels and thereby strengthening our connection to the object. I wanted to make works that held those connections and maintained the view of a simple pot.
I have been spending a lot of time lately developing dry glazes and with this dry copper glaze I was able to achieve the result I wanted –the (human) vessel in pyjamas.
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Flowers 2020
Porcelain, clear glaze with colour stain, gold lustre
32 x 27 x 30 cm
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Julie Winn
About the Artist
This display of porcelain flowers is inspired by the beauty of spring.
One of my favourite places for inspiration is my local boutique florist shop. As soon as I walk into a florist shop my senses are overloaded with the beautiful fragrances, colours and shapes of nature. This concentration of natural beauty in one space motivates me to create a similar environment but in porcelain. Watching the florist create attractive bouquets, knowing these flowers will bring joy to some one’s life inspires me to produce a longlasting creation.
About the Work
I used porcelain clay to hand build my sculptures.
Flowers is semi built and then bisque fired, more pieces are added and then bisque fired again. Eventually I will glaze the sculpture and high fire, the glaze melt and connects the parts together.
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