Roots

The word ‘roots’ contains a multitude of meanings, as do the vessels that make up this body of work. Roots alludes to the ground in which we both stem from and stand on; the places, ideas and foundations that one grows from yet remains tethered to. This body of work traces and hybridises the expansive origins of material, knowledge, philosophy, and human insight that the medium of ceramic offers. 

These works have been made across continents and hemispheres - between Sydney, Australia and Shigaraki, Japan, and at times between the two. They have been fired across electric, gas, reduction, wood, raku, and charcoal kilns. Forms and glazes are varied, exposing a sustained lineage of experimentation with materials and atmospheres. Many of these works have been made during a residency at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan. Local Shigaraki clays lend feldspathic warmth and grit, where the body of each piece contributes equally with the glaze. Extensive glaze research undertaken at the Shigaraki Ceramic Research Institute has resulted in a vast palette of both traditional and contemporary glazes, using minerals and feldspars from Japan, Korea, China, and Africa. Their material origins are international, as are their conceptual and referential roots. Cross-pollination has occurred in almost every aspect of the process - material gathering, making, glazing, and firing - yet each work remains rooted to the moment and place of its firing, the material transformations arrested within the kiln’s atmosphere. 

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