2017 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award at SAM

Featuring shortlisted artist:

Glenn Barkley, Karen Black, Laith McGregor, Jenny Orchard and Yasmin Smith.

Congratulations to Jenny Orchard for winning the major $50,000 acquisitive prize for her work, The Imagined Possibility of Unity (2017). She populated her gallery with such wonderfully eccentric beings. See the expose of images following.

The 2017 Award was judged by Jacqueline Doughty, Curatorial Manager, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne; Jason Smith, Director, Geelong Art Gallery; and Dr Rebecca Coates, Director, Shepparton Art Museum.

Saturday 17 June to Sunday 13 August 2017

Fun road trip to SAM for the artist talks and the announcement. This prize is going from strength to strength. Selection of four Australian artists whose proposals best explored how the ceramic process can be used to flesh-out a conceptual concern. With a stipend of $2000 (I believe) and a gallery space, all four artists really invested in the opportunity and each presented a substantial solo exhibition. 

SMFACA is really a winner takes all situation and I don't disagree with the judges decision. The tension was palpable before the announcement, weighted down by the sum of the prize winnings. Made me do some mathmatical pondering. Might a increased stipend, say $5000 each by nipping off some of the 50,000, therefore giving 25,000 for the winner. 

JENNY ORCHARD

 

 

 

KAREN BLACK

 

LAITH MCGREGOR

  

 

 

GLENN BARKLEY

YASMIN SMITH

Lynda Draper - The Other

This is the fourth solo exhibition from Lynda Draper at Gallerysmith (2008, 2010, 2014 & 2017). All shows expand on Lynda's metaphysical ponderings about the past and the present using objects as the vehicle for narrative. All exhibitions have feature her pursuit of differing sculptural expression and colour palette.  

In this show, The Other presents a fantasy space full of shiny creatures and objects, saccharine sweet but with and underlying and tangled melancholy. All hand-built in earthenware and glaze lustre.

25 May - 1 July 2017

Gallerysmith

170 Abbotsformd Street, North Melbourne 3051

Mary Mary

  

 

Mary Mary

Star Man

Tiara 1

Tiara 2

Bec Smith - Peach Bloom

This brief exhibition was a feast for the senses. Bec uses a feather-light pinching technique, creating egg-shell thin vessels that seem to float above the plinth. Surfaces create a haptic desire to caress.

Often surfaces are 'iced', 'sugared' and 'glazed' with what temptingly looks like edible material. 

Part of this exhibition could be consumed, with floor plinths dusted with sugar and little piles of sugared rose petals to delight the tongue.

A ceramic oil diffuser filled the exhibition space with caramel or fudge smells - delicious. 

A clearly articulated exhibition exploring the relationship between food, vessels, blossom and sense of touch and taste from this recent RMIT graduate.

8-10 June 2017 (Fours days only!)

Guild of Objects

Meet Bec Smith with this interview here

Victorian Craft Award

A 'soft eye' on the works that wowed me at the Awards this year. Congratulations to staff at Craft on the securing of the additional gallery in Collins Place which, alongside Craft's three galleries and the furniture display in the Sofitel lobby provided an grand overview of contemporary craft in 2017. 

3 June - 8 July 2017

Craft, Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

Katherine Wheeler

Finding balance, evolving
porcelain, sterling silver, thread, paint

The Winner of the Ceramic Award $5,000 is KATHERINE WHEELER
Supported by a generous Craft Victoria donor

This quiet and gentle work was not overlooked by the judges amongst many larger and more grandiose entries. Sensitive use of materials and an individual way of cobbling together components to make hybrid forms. This jeweller reminds us that clay can also have an intimate relationship to the body as adornment as well as utensil.

Anna Davern

The Golden Lands of the Sunny South
wood and foam core diorama, objects made from re-worked biscuit tins, printed steel, gem-stone beads

The Winner of the Chair’s Award for Innovation ($1,000) is ANNA DAVERN
Supported by Lousje Skala, Chair of the Board at Craft Victoria

Hannah Gartside

Bunnies in Love, Lust and Longing
found ladies leather gloves, wire

Oh joyous bunnies, you bring my adoration for shadow hand puppets into the bright lights of the white cube. Such fun, whimsy and perfect material to sculptural outcome. I'm still smiling.

Kris Coad

Indigo Blues #3
Porcelain

Glenda Nicholls

The Warrior Milloo Cloak
jute, ochre, paint, emu feathers, wood glue, kangaroo skin

Mum would use either a wooden spoon or the feather duster to spank one of us three siblings. Poor mum, driven to distraction and beatings by our squabbling. I'm always been surprised by my familiarity with emu feathers because of that feather duster that seemed to last for my entire childhood. In the world of feathers, Emu's are of the modest kind, with earthy shades of shifting brown yet a confident spiral twist at the end. Nicholl's Warrior Miloo Cloak and Stick are function at its most finite and symbolic of power by the sheathing of the body and the pointy purpose of the stick. The wearer (I imagine) has the nestling of kangaroo fur against the neck and the caress and tickle of emu at the calf.

Tai Snaith

Slow Down World
ceramic, paper, ink, gouache

Kate Just
The Adambar Strivadi Quilt, 
hand stitched cotton, silk and synthetic fabrics, cardboard, beads

Ema SHIN,  
Soft Alchemy, 
woven tapestry.cotton, wool, rayon

Shin combines flowers and human viscera using textile techniques and gorgeous colouring. This wall piece makes the precious and delicate even more so. 

L-R

Claire Lehmann

3 chainz
porcelain, etched aluminium, L.E.D light strip, power adaptor, steel hanging system

Zhu Ohmu

Empty Thoughts

white raku

Kirsten Perry

Tubular
stoneware, multiple glazes, lustre

Claire McArdle

Sextet
vitreous enamel, copper, sterling silver, crushed stone, epoxy, wood, brass, marble, steel

Claire never ceases to amaze and excite me. Her practice addresses the body and function in the most lateral and imaginative ways.  She is never limited to material or technique - is there no craft she cannot conquer?

The Winner of the Excellence Award ($5,000) is CLAIRE MCARDLE
Supported by the Bowness Family Foundation

Holly Grace

A Billycan - Four Mile Hut
glass, metal, gold leaf

Always a sucker for vessels that relate to narrative surface.

Madeleine Thornton-Smith

Expanding the Ceramic Field
variety of stoneware and earthenware ceramic objects and vessels decorated with earthenware and stoneware glazes, coloured underglaze, and cobalt oxide, concrete cast object, monoprint on acrylic on cartridge paper, acrylic on coloured paper, MDF painted board

Madeleine is a student at RMIT who is working with the current interest in space and object relationships. Looking forward to more work from this artist.

Glenys Mann

Waiting # 1: Remembrance, Women's Loss

found wool blanket, found red yarn

Sometimes with found objects the 'borrowing' is more powerful than the intervention of the artist. Not is this case. I'm so pleased that Glenys chose to retain the Gibsonia blanket label, so subtle but so laden with histories and memories. 

The Winner of the Lynne Kosky Jewellery Award ($10,000) is KIRSTEN HAYDON
Honouring the legacy of Victorian Government Minister, Lynne Kosky and her outstanding committment to the arts
Supported by Creative Victoria

The Winner of the Chair’s Award for Innovation – Emerging ($500) is SAI-WAI FOO
Supported by Lousje Skala, Chair of the Board at Craft Victoria

The Winner of the Jewellery Encouragement Award ($2,000) is MICHAELA PEGUM
Supported by the Family of Lynne Kosky