CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS

CLARE UNGER, DANA LUNDMARK, IZETTE FELTHUN, SHANNON GARSON

20 JUNE - 18 JULY 2015

10AM - 4PM TUESDAY TO SATURDAY

SHANNON GARSON

Shannon Garson is an Australian ceramic artist specialising in thrown, decorated porcelain.

These “Empty Pool” bowls are porcelain pairs, a teabowl nestled into an open bowl. The drawing migrates between the two, the space filling and emptying, echoing the inexorable rhythm of the tides as they ebb and flow over the pools and hollows on the shoreline.

Shannon Garson is the President of The Australian Ceramics Association. Shannon’s studio is based in a small rural town in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.

DANA LUNDMARK

My boats and the people on board offer a glimpse of human drama, suffering and hope.

By presenting the viewer with people in different stances and expressing different emotions through their body language, I invite the viewer to look carefully and imagine what makes a person decide to embark on such risky ventures and to endure such perilous journeys.

All my figures are hand-built in clay, fired and glazed. No figure is identical, and none is perfect, as no human is.

The figures are attached to the boat that in itself appears to be a risk as it may or may not be seaworthy, symbolising the uncertain outcome of the voyage.

In other words, the people all have a dream of a better future that may or may not happen.

CLARE UNGER

Cocoons have provided the inspiration for the forms I have created, while ideas such as transformation, emergence, change and metamorphosis are the underlying concepts that I am exploring.

All the work is  made from ‘fragments’.  Some fragments of clay are printed with photographs of places from my childhood and text from old school reports.  Other fragments are imprinted with the texture of various fabrics or the fabric itself  has been fired onto the surface.

By constructing my work in this way I try to piece together and understand different aspects of my own personal history.  I hope to symbolically represent the many complex layers of history , the people, the places and the memories, which shape me.  I hope to reflect on the generations that preceded me and those that will follow.

IZETTE FELTHUN

The female form has always been a focus of my ceramic endeavours. My work explores an understanding of my identity as both an artist and a woman. I attempt to both parody and celebrate the image of woman.

My interest lies in creating abstract sculptures, which have a sense of movement correlating to the human torso.

I use the vessel and slip cast forms to question perception and representation. I concentrate on simple forms, which sometimes emphasize the relationship between internal and external space, or the movement or stillness within the form.

I present the female nude, not as an ideal body, but rather as an expression about modern ideas about the body. My goal is to break with the ideal beauty of classical sculptures of the past and to find a new relationship between art and the perceptions of the female body today.

click this link to view Izette Felthun’s previous exhibition at Mu Gallery