Deeper

Ceramics by David Pottinger

1-29 September 2018

Craft 

Nerikomi Vessels ranging from 15cm to approx. 50cm tall.
Eye-wateringly fine technique and complexity of pattern.

Slice of Life

Craft goes pop in this exhibition at Craft, where a collection of artists present comments on food, consumption and all the stuff of everyday life. Objects are representational with a deliberate 'handmade-ness' or hyper-real. This is a good opportunity to compare how the past creative genres of West Coast Funk, Skangaroovian Funk or Nut Art can be reinterpreted or reinvented to question contemporary issues. 

Curated by the irrepressible Sofia Cai, she says of the exhibition:

The everyday is both universal yet also deeply personal, and it is in this interplay between collective experience and individual narrative that the works in this exhibition achieve their potency. 

The exhibition features works by Mechelle Bounpraseuth, Julie Burleigh, Scott Duncan, Phil Ferguson (Chili Philly), Katie Jacobs, Josephine Mead, Tricia Page, and Cat Rabbit. 

22 April - 27 May 2017

Craft, 33 Flinders Lane Melbourne

www.craft.org.au

In a time of food styling to a point of fetishism,  Michelle Mounpraseuth notices the gross and  unhealthy elements of everyday consumption.

Katie Jacobs' scores a goal with trophy emblazoned with captions using vernacular sporting language 

Scott Duncan's Smoko rocket is an cracker.  Riffing off Margaret Dodd's ubiquitous  Holden Cars, the thermos is a quirky throw back to the 1980s and South Australia's Skangaroovian Funk via USA's west cost funk of the 1970s. 

Scott Duncan

Josephine Mead's video is redolent with art history reference to the female and vessel  as signifier.

Sun Room - Tessy King

A solo exhibition by Tessy King, curated by Jade Bitar

22 - 27 May 2017

Craft 33 Flinders Lane Melbourne 3000

Tessy King presents a range of her favoured vessel forms. Name them as you please; urn, vase, blossom jar or amphora. They remind us of almost every era & culture that utilised clay to make containers. The great benefits of this form is that it offers a 'blank canvas' for the maker.

Tessy's surface treatments are luscious, a fetishistic depiction of the creamy, viscous joy of plastic clay. The satin glaze exaggerated this sensation. Made from high fired clay, these forms are strong. Their robustness is undermined by a slight 'wonk' in structure and a form that is riddled with gaps and holes.  The delightful tension between opposites continues with  Tessy's witty penchant for adding tiny, 'poorly' made handles that could not possibly assist in the lifting of her vases. These formal decisions and a consistently 'de-skilled' hand, are now firmly and wonderfully part of Tessy's oeuvre of making.

Sun Room's curator Jade Bitar writes eloquently in the room brochure about the supplemental use of display material as such:

The conversation between support and vessel reflects the constant exchange between objects and its physical platform. The curation and supporting pedestals and stands that display the vessel are controlled and measured.

First appearing at Craft earlier this year as part of  Fresh! Victoria Graduates in Contemporary Craft and Design, Tessy King had just completed Honours in Ceramics at RMIT. For Sun Room, Tessy  has expanded into the L-shape of galleries 2 & 3.

To be admired is Tessy and Jade's addressing of context. The gallery is a place to be guided through,  where one notices the intention of the artist. In Sun Room the visitor is treated to a tour of works,  directed by swathes of fabric colour, reflective coloured perspex and cleverly placed mirrors that frame views as if they are still life paintings.

Sun Room beams sun shine onto a young maker who is willing to experiment in both her medium and installation.

And also...

See some of my favourite artists below for their treatment of a similar forms.

David Potter as part of the Margaret Lawrence Collection

Grayson Perry, Urban Butterflies from MCA 2016

Detail

Empty Vessels - Selections from the Margaret Lawrence Ceramics Collection by David Sequeira

New director, David Sequeira, has cleared all storage boxes to complete this display of what seems like most of the 600 piece Margaret Lawrence collection. Sequeira's curatorial and art practice shows a passion for collection, vessels and arrangements in rainbow colour sequence. Entitled Empty Vessels, each ceramic piece, undulates in a gentle line around the two gallery walls. Sequeira's keen eye had addressed his interests by working with a linear harmony using height and colour balance rather than gradation. See the image below of Sequeira's work in the back wall of the VCA office.

Wednesday 12 April - 13 May 2017

Margaret Lawrence Gallery VCA 40 Dodds Street
, Southbank VIC 3006

The two galleries also display a large installation piece recreated from 1994 for Lauren Berkowitz's Bottles. Berkowitz's recycled and beautiful floor cluster is a potent comment on our throw away society. This contrasts wonderfully with precious and linear expanse of Lawrence's ceramic pots, vessels which have been collected and stored with much will and passion.

Lauren Berkowitz Bottles, bottle and jars

Of all the many treasures on display, I have included in this blog works that fulfill my interest in landscape, greens glaze and coiling.

Energetic early Vipoo Srivilasa before he discovered porcelain and cobalt

Wonderful David Potter, so good to see his work again.

A marvellous loosely made Jeff Minchum, a master of relief texture

I am always captivated by the Merric and Doris Boyd's pots. The wind rustling through the branches seems ever presnent.

detail

Confident Klytie Pate with this mob of kangaroos as circular decoration and a delicious green colour,

VCA/ Margaret Lawrence Gallery with David Sequeira found vessel groupings on back wall.

FRESH! 2017

Here is the latest and Fresh!-est bunch of selected students from graduating in craft, design and fine art tertiary courses throughout Victoria. 

Thanks to Kate Rhode who gave a compelling opening story outlining what qualities might be Fresh! (with emphasis on the exclamation mark).

...The point is that maybe magic is another of the synonyms we are searching for when we use the word fresh – and perhaps even more when we give it an exclamation mark. When we pinpoint something as fresh we are assigning it something of the qualities of magic – some un-nameable energy, we see some compelling transformation of the material world...

So when you see all these works today at Craft and you think about the makers, you know the discussion, the comparisons that are being made with other existing work and other existing ideas, whether it be around the use of a technique or material or the concept or the combination of these things.

So when you see all these works today at Craft and you think about the makers, you know the discussion, the comparisons that are being made with other existing work and other existing ideas, whether it be around the use of a technique or material or the concept or the combination of these things...

...(T) he concept of Fresh is – perhaps unhelpfully – at once shared and entirely subjective. But now that the work has been created and chosen for exhibition we are, as viewers, in the role of the, hopefully, generous critic and I think that is a process that can be truly fresh.

18 February to 11 March 2017
Craft , 31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
 

 

Tessy King Sun Room is an investigation into the possibilities for spatializing the ceramic vessel. By deconstructing the vessel and emphasizing its historical prevalence Tessy considers the meaning and value attached to the ceramic form. Referencing antiquity, garden ornaments and domestic ware, the work explores how the space around everyday objects is imparted with meaning on the objects behalf. Exploration into additional materials acting as props for these vessels fragments the surrounding space into areas for viewing. This intervention into space blends the vessel with the constructed supports, reflecting on the constant exchange between object and that which acts as its physical platform.

Claire Lehman Claire is influenced by the industrial design objects and systems usually kept hidden behind walls and ceilings; plumbing, air-conditioning, heating and wiring.
Claire started designing lights from porcelain and immediately realized how difficult the material was when thin enough to be translucent. The strict parameters of the material provide a design challenge, one that continues to be interesting to problem solve.

Cara Johnson Each of the components that contribute to Hinterland (survey) has a correlation to a point within the environment. Observed details, qualities and histories are referenced in the forms and rhythms of making. The objects become intertwined with the land when they are placed, and left, in the environment. Rust and rot creep in and the weather contorts and shifts the materials, removing them from the artist's hand, and returning them to nature.

Rachel Siklic Taking inspiration from the very popular Scandinavian design, the RUSS Sideboard is a finely crafted statement piece. Constructed from solid rock maple timber and birch plywood, the outstanding feature of the RUSS Sideboard is its impressive façade. Each door is covered by ‘ruffles’, individually hand crafted from layers of rock maple veneer and displayed in a radial arrangement. The two-door sideboard features plenty of storage with two inside drawers, in plum coloured film face plywood for a colourful hidden feature. The sideboard boasts slightly splayed wood turned legs and beautiful brass hardware for a chic, retro look. Finished with a clear lacquer applied to highlight the attractive qualities of the timber grain, The RUSS Sideboard is a statement living room and lifetime piece.

 

Hannah Gartside New Terrain (of The Fantasies) is a suspended textile sculpture made from found 1960's petticoat lace trim, tulle, thread and garter belt clips. New Terrain is made from 92 metres of lace, cut into trapezium shapes and stitched back together to create 46 hexagons. The hexagons are tessellated in the style of a patchwork quilt. Cones of the same lace protrude from the centre of each hexagon.

Bec Smith Spring is a collection of porcelain and enamelled sculptures accompanied by fragrance and edible materials. Bec’s installation represents the feeling of immersing oneself in the ethereal qualities of gardens. The palette of colour and texture is inspired by her love for sweet snacks and the smells and flavours of flowers in bloom. The artist is driven by the tactile nature of porcelain and how it preserves the memory of touch.

 

Alison Frith: Topography - study of surface

Luscious, creamy volanic froth, invoking natural and lunar landscapes. 

Topography: A study of surface' 

Tuesday 21st of February

 Sofitel On Collins, Melbourne