Selected for the Northern Beaches Environmental Art Prize in 2022 and 2023

‘River Diety’ in 2022 selected for the Northern Beaches Environmental Design & Art Award, exhibited at the Manly Art Gallery & Museum, 5th to the 28th of August, 2022. Referencing archaic forms suggesting ancient pagan sources of reverence and worship of forces beyond our control. The hand build ceramic work has undergone numerous firings revealing calligraphic marks acting as a tecxt or an implied language to be understood or deciphered. The 'Burnt Landscape' a two sided textile work with stitching embroidered with sequins and beads was selected in 2023.

ARTIST STATEMENT :

'RIVER DIETY' 2022

"The River, an essential source of fertility is a vital pivotal life force.

This hand built ceramic form denotes the totemic force of the river, with its cyclical nature of renewal and destruction. The river, being a potent historical and cultural emblem embedded in our consciousness.

Referencing archaic forms the sculpture suggests ancient pagan sources of reverence and the worship of forces beyond our control.

With numerous firings layers of glaze reveal calligraphic marks that act as a text or an implied language to be understood or deciphered. The work acknowledges the need to understand the river in order to preserve and work with the essential ecosystems and tributaries of the  river. The work is in response to the growing political and environmental concerns of water distribution and water management. "

'THE BURNT LANDSCAPE ' 2023

"The reuse of fabric from the home with a painterly application of acrylic paint, marks and stains infer a landscape still affected by recent bush fires, with its regenerative signs of regrowth. This bush landscape in its wildness backs onto a constructed suburbia, affected by introduced weeds and species proliferating after the fires. The lands topography is both arial and a stratified mountain face, its ridges suggesting a skeleton framework.

Approaching the work as a painting, freely cutting and assembling collaged fabric, made plein air it is an abstracted response. Rolled together as a bundle, returning home, the work is stitched together as one painting. As with mending and repairing items of the home, reusing, folding and stitching marks our need to care for and maintain the bush landscape. The marks infer an abstracted language denoting a need to understand the land, its ecology and the devastating effect of bushfires."

'River Diety', stoneware ceramic with glaze, 56 x 28 x 21 cm, 2021, 'The Burnt Landscape', textile, stitching, sequins, 150 x 150cm, 2022

2022 Meroogal Women's Art Prize

My textile work, ‘Repair and Mending Time’ , 150 cm x 150 cm, fabric, hand stitiching, sequins and beads, has been selected for the 2022 Meroogal Women’s Art Prize. The works are to be exhibited within the historic home, Meroogal, NSW, one of the many historic properties protected by the Sydney Living Museums. A wonderful setting creating an interplay between contemporary art and history. All the works exhibited respond to the historical context of the site.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

"This textile work of fabric samples hand-stitched with threads and cotton echoes the handy work of generations of women who resided within this house. Repairing and mending over time the work acknowledges an essence of making do, using what’s at hand, a love of fabric and the domestic sphere. It can be shown either side revealing a traditionally concealed back. Unleashed from a pragmatic functionality it becomes a contemporary abstracted drawing with exposed cuttings. Embellished with sequins, it celebrates the domestic and the everyday."

'Repair and Mending Time', textile, stitching, sequins, 150 x 150 cm, 2023, two sided work, in situ

North Queensland Ceramic Award 2022

The ceramic work, ‘River Language and Connections’ has been slected for the North Queensland Ceramic Award, exhibited at the Perc Tucker Regional Art Gallery, Townsville, 22 July to the 25th of September 2022.

ARTIST STATEMENT :

"The ceramic work continues an exploration between the relationship of the discipline of painting and the hand built stoneware form, it is a conversation between paint and clay. Focusing on the concept of the river, a source of fertility, with limited water resources, floods and droughts mark our consciousness.

The work acknowledges our need to understand the river in order to preserve and work with these essential forces." 

'River Language and Connections', stoneware ceramic with glaze, 45 x 32 x 26 cm, 2022