Down to Earth

23 MAY - 9 AUGUST 2017

This exhibition of ceramics from the University of Western Australia Art Collection and the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, in partnership with the City of Perth Library, is a UWA Away Project. Stewart Scambler, Column, 2013, woodfired stoneware, 37 x 14 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the Friends of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 2013 Guy Grey-Smith, untitled (platter with bobtail lizard design), n.d, hand-painted slip on earthenware, 28 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Cherry Lewis, 2014

DOWN TO EARTH

Despite originating from different countries, namely Australia, particularly in the sky and tree trunks. Grey-Smith’s untitled work, China and Thailand, the ceramics displayed in Down to Earth are featuring blue/purple bobtail lizards against a harmonious pink intertwined in terms of both the themes that influenced their creators background, again pushes at the boundaries between European and the processes through which they were made. Within this abstraction of form and figurative representation of distinctly exhibition, observable links permeate the ceramics in several ways. Australian subject matter. The use of a hand-painted slip2 to describe Firstly, several of the works represent the local Western Australian the lizards has allowed for a painterly treatment of the subject matter landscape, through visual depiction or through processes that rely and abstraction of form into curvilinear brushstrokes. Juniper’s on local materials. Other Australian ceramists such as Milton Moon untitled ceramic landscape pushes abstraction even further, with a and Joan Campbell have used processes that reflect Zen Buddhism, considered focus on harmonising colour and simplifying forms in a in simplicity and natural asymmetry. In contrast, the ceramics from bird’s-eye view of the Western Australian landscape.3 This can invoke Thailand and China showcase a more precise approach to the firing different emotional responses, such as awe, at the sheer vastness of process, in order to achieve specific glaze colourings.Down to Earth the landscape. explores a total of 12 ceramic objects, from the University of Western Australia Art Collection and the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art at Another way the landscape has been represented by the Australian the University of Western Australia. ceramists in this exhibition is through the use of materials that come directly from the land. This is seen in the processes through which The ceramics by Pippin Drysdale, Guy Grey-Smith and Robert Juniper Stewart Scambler and Joan Campbell make their ceramics. Scambler all visually represent the Western Australian landscape through uses a woodfiring technique that directly mirrors the Fremantle/ varying degrees of figuration and abstraction. Drysdale’s work from York landscapes where the ceramics were created. Scambler sources the Logging on Parchment series utilises the flat face of the plate as a local clay as well as using wood for firing that is native to the Western surface on which to paint felled trees, drawing attention to the effect Australian environment, including York gum, black sheoak and of die-back on the forests of Western Australia.1 Here, Drysdale’s acacia acuminata.4 The wood creates different coloured glazes, and style figuratively captures the landscape, while the influence of the drips of ash trace delicate patterns across the pots. Furthermore, abstraction is apparent in the simplified, sweeping brushstrokes, during the firing process the pots are rested on sea shells, which Robert Juniper, untitled (landscape), c 1984, ceramic, 44.3 x 45 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Dr Ian Bernadt, 1996

are later removed to reveal visible patches of orange clay.5 Similarly, Visual simplicity is created through different processes in the ceramics Campbell also sources local clay from Western Australia, although of Mengrai Kilns in Thailand and the Chinese ceramics in the style Campbell uses a raku firing technique.6 Sometimes, while the of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), all of ceramics are still hot from the kiln, Campbell places them into pits in which showcase works glazed in a single colour. Mengrai Kilns use a the ground that are filled with local materials like seaweed or leaves translucent green, crackled glaze called Celadon.11 The glaze is made that combust to pattern the surface of the clay.7 from a mixture of silt from paddy fields and ash from specific types of wood, and fired under high temperatures with carefully controlled The working processes of both Campbell and Milton Moon reflect levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in order to achieve the Celadon the influence of Japanese Zen Buddhism, which manifests in art colour. The delicate cracks in the glaze are formed as the ceramics through an appreciation for simplicity and asymmetry. The Japanese cool after firing, due to different temperatures between the clay and technique of raku firing used by Campbell reflects Zen, as raku the glaze.12 Similarly, it is likely that the black glaze coating the untitled requires coarse clay and quick firing, resulting in a work that has a ceramic from the Yuan Dynasty would have been created through a degree of natural roughness and wholesomeness.8 Moon was also process in which all variables have been carefully controlled. During directly influenced by Zen Buddhism. Moon spent a year in Japan the Yuan Dynasty, black glazes were made by covering the ceramics in 1974, where he learnt about Japanese pottery and meditation.9 with a slip glaze of dark brown, and then applying a second darker The Japanese tea masters favoured ceramics that showed humanity glaze over this, made from iron oxide.13 Through controlling the through imperfection and spontaneity, characteristics that are amount of iron oxide, the temperature, and the atmosphere, the glaze evident in Moon’s ceramics due to his use of a hand-wheel to throw can vary from a rusty brown to a lustrous black. During this period, pots, which results in more asymmetry than a mechanised wheel.10 the glaze rarely reached the foot of the ceramics, indicative of the The roughness of both Campbell and Moon’s pottery, elegant in abandonment of refined surface glazes that is characteristic of the its simplicity, also harks back to the Australian landscape and the Yuan Dynasty.14 asymmetrical forms found in nature. Mengrai Kilns, Plate, c 1978, ceramic with celadon glaze, 26.5 x 5 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Mengrai Kilns, Thailand, 1978

Through depictions of the Australian landscape and examples of the various processes used to make ceramics, Down to Earth explores a 1. Ted Snell, Pippin Drysdale: Lines of Site (Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Press, 2007), 75. range of ceramics from different cultural backgrounds, uncovering 2. Andrew Gaynor, Guy Grey-Smith: Life Force (Crawley, WA: University of Western several observable links between the works. Ceramics, as a medium, Australia Publishing, 2012), 161. can be vessels for the visual depiction of the landscape and the 3. Trevor Smith, “The Symbolist Landscape,” in Robert Juniper, ed. Trevor Smith (Perth, ideas that have informed their creation, as well as the physical use of WA: Art Gallery of Western Australia, 1999), 11. materials derived directly from the landscape. In this, ceramics are 4. “Stewart and Trish Scambler” (artist’s webpage), accessed April 29, 2017, http://www. objects that can be made from the same earth, through clay, colours stscambler.com.au/woodfired/ and ash, that they embody. It all comes down to earth. 5. “Stewart and Trish Scambler” (artist’s webpage) 6. Luceille Hanley, “Joy in Making”, in Joan Campbell, potter, ed. Luceille Hanley (Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1984), 8 Grace Huffer 7. Ibid. Curator, Down to Earth 8. Ibid., 8-23 9. Margot Osborne, “A conversation with Milton Moon on approaching the intangible,” Artlink 26, no. 4 (2006): 64, accessed 29 April, 2017, http://search.informit.com. au.ezproxy.library.uwa.edu.au/fullText;dn=200701576;res=IELAPA 10. Milton Moon, “Around and around- slowly but surely”, Ceramics Technical 25 (2007): 101, accessed 27 April, 2017, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.uwa.edu.au/ ehost/detail/detail?sid=d16ba3a9-b002-4219-95d6-f52e5ce24dab%40sessionmgr40 09&vid=0&hid=4101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=27748327&d b=a2h 11. “Mengrai Kilns” (artist webpage), accessed April 27, 2017, http://www.mengraikilns. com/celadon.asp?lan=eng 12. Ibid. 13. Margaret Medley, Yuan Porcelain and Stoneware (London, Faber and Faber, 1974), 121 14. Ibid. Pippin Drysdale, Logging on Parchment series, 1989, porcelain, 53 x 9 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the artist, 1990

LIST OF WORKS

Guy Grey-Smith, untitled (platter with bobtail lizard design), n.d, hand-painted Robert Juniper, untitled (landscape), c 1984, ceramic, 44.3 x 45 cm, The slip on earthenware, 28 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Dr Ian Bernadt, 1996 Gift of Cherry Lewis, 2014 Song Dynasty; in the style of (960-1279), untitled, n.d, green slip glazed Joan Campbell, Green Spirit, 1976, raku fired clay, 50 x 40 x 40 cm, Cruthers stoneware, 22.8 x 17.7 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Collection of Women’s Art, The University of Western Australia, CCWA 817 Gift of Dr Albert Gild, 1974

Mengrai Kilns, Plate, c 1978, ceramic with celadon glaze, 26.5 x 5 cm, The Stewart Scambler, Column, 2013, woodfired stoneware, 37 x 14 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Mengrai Kilns, Thailand, University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the Friends of the 1978 Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 2013

Mengrai Kilns, Mallet Vase, c 1978, ceramic with celadon glaze, 29.5 x 14 Stewart Scambler, Spherical Jar, 2013, woodfired stoneware, 30 x 30 cm, cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Mengrai Kilns, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the Friends of the Thailand, 1978 Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 2013

Milton Moon, River Red Gum series, 1990, stoneware, 68.8 cm x 31 x 31 cm, The Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), untitled, c. mid 14th Century, black iron glazed University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the artist, 1990 stoneware, 17.5 x 17 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Dr Albert Gild, 1974 Milton Moon, Waterhole, 1987, stoneware, 55. 8 x 6.2 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, University Senate Grant, 1990

Pippin Drysdale, Logging on Parchment series, 1989, porcelain, 53 x 9 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the artist, 1990 Milton Moon, River Red Gum series, 1990, stoneware, 68.8 cm x 31 x 31 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the artist, 1990 CURATOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Grace Huffer, curator ofDown to Earth, would like to thank Ted Snell, Chief Cultural Officer at the University of Western Australia (UWA); Kate Hamersley, Registrar for the UWA Art Collection; and Gemma Weston, Curator of the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art; for their help, advice and support. Thank you to Joanna Andrew and Susan Marie at the City of Perth Library for their partnership with the UWA Away Project and for providing the exhibition space. Finally, thanks also to all of the staff at the UWA Cultural Precinct and the installation team.

Cover image: Joan Campbell, Green Spirit, 1976, raku fired clay, 50 x 40 x 40 cm, Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, The University of Western Australia, CCWA 817

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