Shifting SenSeS Shifting SenSeS Ebony HEindEnrEicH WaynE Mcara SopHia nuSkE Maria parMEntEr SopHia pHillipS aliSon SMilES ulrica trulSSon GEorGE ZacHaroyanniS curatEd by raylEEn ForEStEr Supported by the South Australian Ceramics Committee and Guildhouse this exhibition showcases South Australian based ceramicists at M16 Artspace in Canberra to coincide with Stepping Up: The Australian Ceramics Triennial, 9-11 July 2015. Cover Image: Maria Parmenter, Kameruka Road 2015, wheelthrown and altered porcelain, variable dimensions. Photographer Michael Kluvanek Shifting SenSeS Guildhouse in partnership with the South Australian Ceramics Committee are proud to present Shifting Senses in collaboration with Stepping Up, The Australian Ceramics Triennale, Canberra 2015. Following on from our successful partnership presenting Subversive Clay, The Australian Ceramics Triennale, held in Adelaide in 2012 we are delighted to present eight highly talented artists during the Canberra conference. Our intention is to give emerging and mid career artists and a curator the opportunity to be presented during this national event and to showcase a select group of talented South Australian artists. Curated by Rayleen Forester this exhibition highlights a broad range of ideas and interests of these creative professionals along with presenting their skilled craftsmanship and creativity. Rae O’Connell Executive Director, Guildhouse Sophia Nuske, First World Problems? Here’s a BADAID 2014-15, stoneware, house paint, acrylic surface sealant. Variable dimensions. Photographer Michael Kluvanek My recent works consist of simple forms that often make links between plant, the tranSition human and animal from functional to Sculptural After completing my undergraduate wonderful Asian ceramic collection. Also, Glasgow School of Art. During this period about predicting the future. Lately it studies in ceramics at the South since marrying a person of Middle Eastern I made a transition from functional to seems to me that ceramic or clay is one Australian School of Art in the late 1970’s heritage I became interested in a wider sculptural ceramics but also spent some I worked as studio potter for 10 years. view of the history of ceramics (although time working with a wider range of media. an artist may choose to make things At this time teaching institutions were I think I only really appreciated European I also began working in collaboration with. Artists are combining the technical somewhat divided between the school with my partner Hossein Valamanesh on nature of this craft with the theory of funk and the school of functional the work of Lucie Rie and others. public projects such as the Memorial to of contemporary practice. It seems ceramics. I chose functional, beginning the Irish Famine at Hyde Park Barracks that people are more focused on the I loved making pots that people would classes with Milton Moon and learnt to in Sydney completed in 1999 and more content of what they’re saying as part use and handle in their daily lives but make bowls, cups, bottles and eventually recently the Ginkgo Gate at the Western of the process rather than just trying to I was exhibiting in galleries so when teapots. There was not much formal entrance to Adelaide Botanic Gardens master the material that they’re using. I started to make forms that did not exposure to design principles but a focus completed in 2011. Personally I would like to see a balance have glaze on them I realised that they between content and material thoughts probably would no longer be useful in the The transition from functional to and basic glaze principles. The classes in art works in the future. same way. I was making functional forms sculptural practice meant I needed to were small in number and we were that would only be looked at, not handled be more aware of the content or ideas expected to be present from 9am to any longer, and became more interested underpinning my work. My recent works in the surface and colour of the clay. consist of simple forms that often make We were pretty good at making pots and links between plant, human and animal . understood the basic principles of studio In the early 1990’s I returned to the South pottery well. Australian School of Art undertaking a I think there will certainly continue Master of Arts in Visual Arts and was to be ceramic practices for as long as The presence of Milton Moon leant a we are here on this planet and artists Gordon Samstag International Visual Art continue to have the drive for it as a Scholarship with a one year residency at the Art Gallery of South Australia’s Shifting SenSeS Clay has been used, decorated, coveted touchstone within this practice; it and collected for generations, the medium continues to surprise and of art making; imbuing generational rearticulate itself through innovative tales and fostering a narrative that can cross social and cultural barriers. There Contemporary ceramicists are constantly is always an element of chance with setting new standards and pushing the ceramic art and the process of marking, boundaries of this historically honoured stretching, moulding and reworking craft material. forms creates a new dialogue between the artist and their chosen materials. Ceramics has consistently explored the notion of an embodied experience, often Sophia Phillips Ribs (Adam, Eve, the abstraction, as a way of engaging with connection between the artist, material the processes of making art. and process. Hanging ominously from the ceiling and comprising a number of Shifting Senses is an exhibition that components Ribs forms part of a larger investigates experimental processes in body of research undertaken by the contemporary ceramic art. By engaging artist in Australia and China. The work with three curatorial concerns – a mark, communicates a strong physicality driven a vessel, and a scene – this exhibition focuses on the formation of new narratives whilst addressing issues concerning identity, the environment, purposeless objects by linking them process and possibility. together to form a partial cage. The piece A MARK exudes tension built from the action of gripping the clay; it is an emotional act This section focuses on the relationship only to be released with a contradictory between the artist, material and the impression left in its place. The viewer elements. They are fundamental components in reading visual arts and attempting to let go or trying to hold on? could be considered more recognisable in the work of ceramic artists than any other. Mark making is a historical Sophia Phillips, 2014, Jingdezhen porcelain, wire trace, variable dimensions. Photographer Michael Kluvanek Alison Smiles, Shared Repose 2015, hand built raku clays, linen, variable dimensions. Photographer Michael Kluvanek Ebony Heindenreich, Still Lives I the old, new again Heindenreich and A SCEnE society’s dilemmas (without dictating it gallery, Alison Smiles Shared Repose Parmenter devise a new kind of curiosity is an installation of hand built forms towards art making and the use of in its approach but addresses a larger made from raku clay that rests in a historical materials. They are focused on investigates the role of installation and discussion around the value of current large formation. The works transition in contemporary, popular culture ideologies other contemporary visual arts practices social and political discourse. and out of the familiar and the peculiar steeped in traditional, aesthetic driven in ceramics art. The works exhibited George Zacharoyannis’ Untitled delves practices. For Heindenreich process is just initiate a new dialogue regarding into personal narratives and story-telling Here, Smiles considers the shared act as important as the outcome. Each form, contemporary ceramic art and the role of through objects. Hand built pieces, found of simply sleeping; various shapes and although visible as a functional piece, is the artist and their audience. objects and mass produced bricks line a sizes all laying down and undertaking the also an experiment in action. Parmenter’s Wayne Mcara’s practice is known for same ‘performance’. Smiles translates beautiful objects succinctly highlight artist’s own truths regarding a number of this act through hand built carved forms; the capability of this art form. These textural and earthy, communicating a ‘metaphorical vessels’ are instilled with the familiar or emotive he (sometimes practice allows him to test and re-test ‘landscape’ of bodies undertaking an multiple meanings although they exude materiality and kinetic energy. Untitled unspoken shared experience. delicate porcelain forms he makes. unravels the artist’s views on individuality in the mundane whilst rearticulating These works lay the foundation for #icantbreathe is one such work which and his position within social constructs. the domestic without highlighting the rereading the context of contemporary history or personal memory of what Curatorially, by engaging with three ceramics today. It is an art form that reading. Utilising slip casting and hand these objects mean; this translation or areas of concern, each artist has had the can speak to a history and future connection is stripped away from the simultaneously. Phillips’ and Smiles’ masks can be seen hanging against the surface yet remains charged within the and approaches to their art making. exhibition works communicate wall. A cluster of identical masks sit on work. Through this experimental approach the physicality and material driven the artwork produced speaks to a larger processes used by contemporary ceramic For Ulrica Trulsson an intrinsic part another. On closer inspection we can see theory regarding process driven art, the artists today. Whilst remaining true of her practice is experimenting with the detail of the original paper masks formation of narratives through the to the tradition of the medium, their functionality, form and metaphors and the intricate stitching that Mcara object, and the relationship of ceramics reinterpretation highlights this art form’s associated with the vessel. Driven by an has undertaken on the surface of the to sculpture, craft and installation.