Speakers for this event

• Amy Kennedy

  Amy Kennedy

  'In my works, fine paper-thin leaves of glaze material are assembled to form layered objects. Working with delicacy and movement, I use the flowing layers like the opening pages of a book or fluttering piles of fabric to create a windblown or whirlpool effect. Energy and movement is assisted by the gentle softening that occurs during the firing process, giving sculptures the capacity to hover, tilt or extend, as if once animated.' Amy Kennedy is a ceramic artist based in Melbourne. Her work is guided by the development of unique materials and processes. She is driven by a sense of wonder and curiosity in natural phenomena and endeavors to capture these qualities in her works. Amy graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Honours from RMIT University in 2006, having previously completed a Diploma of Ceramics at Box Hill Institute of TAFE. Her career highlights include being awarded residencies at Baer Art Center Iceland, Anderson Ranch Arts Centre, Colorado USA, and the European Ceramic Work Centre in The Netherlands. In 2015 she was awarded first prize in the Toorak Village Sculpture Exhibition and in 2013 a New Work Grant by the Australia Council for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions nationally, including Return to Beauty, Edwina Corlette Gallery Brisbane (2016), Quiet Conversations, Skepsi Gallery (2014) and An Important Exhibition of Australian Ceramics: A Tribute to Janet Mansfield at Mossgreen Gallery, Melbourne (2014). Her work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Bendigo Art Gallery, Warrnambool Art Gallery and the European Ceramic Work Centre. click here to go to Amy’s website Image: Baer (2017) Image Credit: Christopher Sanders

• Bridget Nicholson

  Bridget Nicholson

  Bridget is a Melbourne-based visual artist, with a background in architecture, urban design, sculpture, and an overlay of community cultural development. The impetus for this journey was provided by a childhood experience that created the need to question my own identity and connection to 'place' in an effort to acquire a sense of belonging. Most recently this quest has best been served by developing arts projects that enable me to delve into these questions through interactions with others; people and places. Multi media conceptual installations provide a framework for reviewing and re-presenting the experiences and material collected. Work starts with finding a material that is embedded in the conceptual thinking, within the parameters of place it has always resulted in organic materials and often clay. The body has become in effect the tool and the means engagement. Current work on threatened species has taken as a starting point the egg. Clay again seems the natural choice and together they are the focus of my paper and workshops. Clay: Affect and Effect will look at the way in which clay has played an active role developing works both conceptually and physically. Workshops will follow to enable a playing out of ideas. Bridget has exhibited in regional galleries and non ‘art’ spaces, she has presented at a number of conferences including Performance Climates Psi#22, and Land Dialogues and been published in Garland online magazine, The Journal of Australian Ceramics and Ceramics Technical. Portrait: Helga Leunig

• Dr Cathy Franzi

  Dr Cathy Franzi

  Dr Cathy Franzi is a visual artist engaged with ideas of nature and the environment. Through the materiality of ceramics and its possibilities for form, surface imagery and installation, she explores ways to express cultural values attributed to Australian plants, including scientific ones. Her work is underpinned by research in the botanical sciences, natural history collections and fieldwork on location. In 2015 Franzi was awarded a practice-led PhD from the ANU School of Art and Design in which she explored ways in which representations of Australian flora on the ceramic vessel, historically and in her own work, might reflect botanical and environmental knowledge. In 2016 she investigated the significance of leaf shape and function in collaboration with Professor Adrienne Nicotra in the Research School of Biology as part of the Vice-Chancellor’s College Artist Fellows Scheme. Currently she is undertaking research for the project Art of Threatened Species supported by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. Her work is held in numerous collections including Parliament House Art Collection and Manly Art Gallery and Museum. click here to go to Cathy’s website Image: Cathy Franzi, Patterns of Distribution (in leaf shape of Australian Pelargonium species), detail, 2016. Porcelain, 16h x 108w x 36d cm. photographer, Andrew Sikorski:Art Atelier Portrait: Andrew Sikorski: Art Atelier

• Dr Olivia Hamilton

  Dr Olivia Hamilton

  Dr Olivia Hamilton is an emerging ceramic artist and sociologist from NSW. She recently completed the Diploma in Ceramics at Gymea TAFE, and has previously completed a PhD in Sociology at Macquarie University. Her academic and artistic practices are closely linked. As a researcher, Olivia explores ideas of belonging, identity, and concepts of space and place, while in her art practice, these central concerns are complemented by an interest in everyday objects and material culture. Olivia’s graduate body of work, titled De Corporis Fabrica (2018), was a comment on the experience of living with endometriosis. The work drew inspiration from research into early anatomical drawings and current understandings of female anatomy, in the slip-cast and hand-built elements, while also using gestural thrown forms to evoke the embodied experience of chronic pelvic pain. She was a finalist in 2018’s sculpture walk, Hidden in Rookwood, with her mixed media installation piece What Lies Buried / What Grows (2018), which explored the connections between people and place through a reflection on the acts of burying, and planting. click here to go to Olivia’s website Portrait: Dean Ixer

• Eloise Rankine

  Eloise Rankine

  I am based in Sydney where I make, sell and exhibit ceramics. I run elph store in Paddington NSW, make elph ceramics, and exhibit artworks through Utopia Art Sydney. I also teach beginner’s throwing at Kil.n.it experimental ceramics studio, Glebe. I found my love of ceramics while studying fine arts at National Art School and since graduating I have exhibited in group shows at both commercial and regional galleries as well as being a finalist in a range of art prizes. I am currently just about to complete a Masters of Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. My preferred method of making is throwing, carving and altering porcelain, sometimes playing around with stains and other clays, but I do dabble in hand building sometimes! I work predominately in stoneware but have recently been enjoying using midfire porcelains.

• Jan Guy

  Jan Guy

  Jan Guy is an artist, writer, academic and occasional curator who graduated from the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane, Australia and Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Her PhD research focused on the relationships between the haptic senses and virtual spaces. Since 2006 she has been a full-time lecturer in ceramics/sculpture at the University of Sydney. A diverse creative practice in ceramics and the broader field of art that encompasses sculptural, functional and installation has resulted in my participation in over 50 exhibitions and a recipiency of a National Craft Acquisition Award and an Honourable Mention in the International Ceramics Triennale in Mino, Japan. An interest in craft and design theory and an enthusiasm for emerging artists includes the publication of many journal articles, catalogue essays and the presentation of conference papers at the 2009 and 2012 Australian Ceramics Triennials and invitations to deliver papers in Taipei and the 2014 Ceramics in the Expanded Field conference in London. She was a member of the organizing committee for the 2009 Australian Ceramics Triennale and has curated several exhibitions including the 2009 Young Guns, an international show of emerging ceramics artists. She has been an artist in residence in Finland, Taiwan and Hong Kong and loves to travel as it allows her to be a stranger to herself. She claims that art is life, but that might be untrue. Portrait: Image courtesy of the artist

• Jane Bamford

  Jane Bamford

  Jane began studying ceramics in Japan in 1993. She subsequently completed her BFA, majoring in Ceramics at the Tasmanian College of the Arts and was awarded the Deans’ roll of excellence. Jane was later selected as an Associate at the Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre in Adelaide and has worked in her own studio practice, educational facilities and exhibited throughout Australia and internationally. This year she was a finalist in the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize and successively undertook an Art/Science residency at UTAS School of Creative Arts. Jane’s work is primarily informed from research and observation of the coastal, marine and alpine landscapes of Tasmania. This observation, connection to place and environmental awareness has led her to produce work on issues like climate change’s impact on Tasmanian marine environments and the reestablishment of Spotted Handfish spawning habitat. In 2018 Jane began a commission for the CSIRO to design and make 3000 ceramic artificial spawning habitat (ASH) for the Spotted Handfish (Brachionichthys hirsutus). These installations of ASH were SCUBA deployed to support this critically endangered marine species. Creating ceramic ASH is a significant project which intersects her ceramic art practice with current scientific research and practice. In September 2018 the Spotted Handfish’s first wild spawning around ceramic ASH was observed. It is rare that an arts practice has the opportunity to engage so directly with the natural environment in a manner that is beyond interpretive and has very real achievable positive ecological outcomes. click here to go to Jane’s website Portrait: Charles Chadwick

• Karen Weiss

  Karen Weiss

  Karen Weiss is a practicing ceramist, community artist and ceramics journalist with an Associate Diploma in Vis. Arts (Ceramics) and an M.A. in Creative Writing. Currently she is working on a Research PhD with the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University. Her love of travelling and ceramics, coupled with an insatiable curiosity about her own Australian and other cultures, has led to her visiting 32 countries, as well as travelling extensively in Australia. She has taught ceramics to teachers, people with a disability, children and adults. She was part of the committee of the Australian Ceramics Triennale Sydney 2009, organising panels and exhibitions for the Aboriginal and Disability speakers, demonstrators and exhibitors, and co-organising initial stages of the Renegade Clay ephemeral events in the Sydney CBD. Until recently, she was an active committee member of the Australian Ceramics Association as Vice President and Education Officer. Her recent fieldwork for her doctorate has taken her to Japan, Central Australia and New Mexico, USA to interview Japanese potters, Aboriginal potters in Hermannsburg and Pueblo and Hopi potters in southwestern USA. She has also conducted interviews in farflung Sydney, Australia.