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price guide
ceramics
price range:
$50 to $1,500
favourite artists
BrancusiHiroe Swen
Paul Klee
Pru Venables
Gudrun Klix
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biography
I was born in Sydney in 1968 to very adventurous parents who soon ventured North in an old Morris Butter Van and eventually ended up in Darwin. From Darwin we left Australia for Indonesia where I spoke my first words in Indonesian. We then travelled on through Southeast Asia until we reached Laos where we lived until I was 5 years old. Southeast Asia still feels like a second home and I'm sure is influential in my ceramic works. As an adult I have also moved a lot living in Sydney, Canberra, Darwin, Bellingen and 6 months as a student exchange in Valencia, Spain. The opportunity to study ceramic sculpture with Enrique Mestre in Valencia, Spain in 1993 provided the basis for my forms and engobe surface. While studying at ANU, Institute of the Arts, Hiroe Swen was an important teacher and mentor in my ceramic development. The dry engobe surface became a means to depict the Australian landscape which I discovered on road trips in different parts of Australia. I have also travelled to Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Italy, England, Wales and Spain and still wish to see more of the world when my children are older. My husband Paul and I and our 2 children (Ella, 7 and Juno, 5) moved to Bellingen in October 2003 and bought a 1 bedroom house which we later extended by building a three bedroom house and studio set beside the original. The move to Bellingen from Surry Hills is the latest adventure.
artist profile
Through my practice I explore the ancient quality of landscape from the intimate to the grandiose. I attempt to capture the aesthetic moment and living spirit of the land. My pieces are subtle and have a sense of stillness that reflects both inner (the meditative space of studio practice) and outer realms. They appear solid and earthy but with a refined fragility manifesting in the eroded, broken eggshell like edges. I reference organic adobe structures, the crescent, disc, shells, seedpods, temples and shrines. Windows and keyholes feature through some pieces or are a place for found items of intrinsic beauty that are often overlooked: a shell core, seedpod, weathered twigs and lichen patterns on pebbles. The piece becomes a shrine to the object, elevating it, inviting contemplation. Some pieces are earthy, sensual and rounded hand built forms that invite touch while others are more geometric and architectural.
The medium of clay allows a depth of surface and form through the process of hand building: pushing and pulling clay into its infinite variety. The form is further worked by paddling until its evolution is complete with the refining scraping back of the surface and edges. I explore the textural qualities of clay and push the elemental forms further. These pieces explore the surface through leaving evidence of construction (coils, chattering and paddling marks) and I emphasise cracks and irregularities with oxides and engobes. In contrast, I often smooth and refine the interiors of these vessels to better adhere a high-fired clear glaze.
