the kiss
2024
Glazed stoneware with copper lustre
25 x 27 x 17 cm
The kiss draws on the materiality of clay and glaze to explore representations of femininity in a rural landscape. Rural small towns present challenges to young women, in particular those who do not conform to the more traditional ideologies of who young women should aspire to be and their roles in relationships. The Kiss conceptualises the tension between a wider global understanding of womanhood and the challenges women face in learning to embrace a sexuality not tied to motherhood and domesticity. Drawing on memories of growing up in a rural small town, The Kiss uses the event of a young woman’s first kiss to present the tension point between expectation and experience – youthful exuberance and the longing for a life not restricted by tradition. The selections of clay and glaze conceptualise the colours and textures of the landscape – glossy tans with mottled pinks connect the identities of the central two figures to the dark earth comprising their bodies. The application of lustre and glaze emphasising the energy and chemistry between two young people, a young woman with the world at her feet – torn between longing and tradition.
of remembering,
what was forgotten
2024
Unglazed porcelain
Installed dimensions variable
The unglazed porcelain of of remembering / what was forgotten, emphasises the water etched landscapes upon the surface. Drawing on the materiality of porcelain – fragile and susceptible – the vessels become increasingly subjected to the ravages of time and its impact on memory. The work examines the complexity of memory in the way that children recollect events as adults and the impact that this can have on their memory of childhood after extended periods of forgetting. The etchings of the landscape reinforce a continuing examination of the ways in which a landscape holds markers that trigger memory of events that occur within it.
a fragile thread
2024
Glazed and unglazed porcelain with ash glazes
Installed dimensions variable
The still life collection of vessels, a fragile thread, draws on the thematic examination of memory within the landscape to challenge notions of the functional form as conceptual vessel. Whilst the forms repeat the same profile with varying degrees of height added to the foot, the functionality of the vessels are disrupted through the application or lack thereof, of a variety of ash glazes, rock pigment glazes and the absence of glaze itself. Whilst a departure from my typical sculptural approach to these themes, the abstraction of the imagery through the glazes themselves draws on the precedence of Gwyn Hanssen Piggott’s still life collections to examine how functional ceramic forms can provide avenues for conceptual communication. The meaning created through the materiality of the porcelain and glaze provides an additional layer to a body of work that draws heavily on objective abstraction.
