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Ceramics

About

The hands-on emphasis of the Ceramics program at NAS encourages students to explore and develop a wide range of skills and technical knowledge across the temperature spectrum from raku to porcelain. The Ceramics studios and workshops are among the best equipped in Australia.

The department has a total of 18 kilns offering a wide range of firing options. Students also have access to a dedicated glaze lab, wheel forming and hand building studio. NAS Ceramics offers world-class teaching, facilities and equipment that enable students to develop from expert instruction and peer learning, then further with individual exploration.

Following the studio-based, hands-on model of learning at NAS, all Ceramics students receive intensive face-to-face teaching in small classes and are allocated their own studio in their final year of study in the Bachelor of Fine Art. Postgraduate students also have their own studio on campus.

In the BFA program, all students take Ceramics in first semester alongside electives in painting, photomedia, printmaking and sculpture; in second semester students choose two of those electives to specialise in. In second year, students focus fully on a chosen elective such as Ceramics, however there are always opportunities for cross-disciplinary work.

All Ceramics lecturers are experienced practicing artists, providing a dynamic, collaborative and encouraging environment to nurture each student through the development of studio practice, professional practice and research, helping them find their own unique path as an emerging visual artist.

While embracing the traditions of ceramic practice, the department aims to foster a diverse dialogue between all aspects of contemporary arts practice.

The teaching team is led by Head of Ceramics Lynda Draper, an accomplished practising artist who has won many national and international awards and appeared in major exhibitions including Know My Name at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) and Clay Dynasty at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS).

Facilities

NAS Ceramics facilities include:

  • Kiln shed with 18 kilns offering a wide range of firing options including gas, electric and Raku kilns of various capacities.
  • Glaze Lab with individual station extraction units, blunger and ball mill facilities for wet mixing.
  • Wheel-forming studio accommodating 19 participants, and 16 wheels available for individual studios.
  • Hand-building studio equipped with clay extruder, clay slab roller and banding wheels.
  • Wet clay processing facilities with four pugmills, including vacuum mixing batch pugmill.
  • Cutting and grinding equipment including wet diamond bench saw and dry cutting and grinding wheels attached to H-class vacuum.
  • Well-stocked store of materials for class and individual research.
  • Individual ceramics studios for BFA3 and postgraduate students.

CONTACT

Please fill in our online enquiry form below or call us on +61 2 9339 8651 to speak with our Student Services Team.

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Alumni

Ceramics graduates from NAS have gone on to successful careers in the arts sector as full-time practising artists, production potters, ceramic designers, art educators, ceramic studio managers, technical assistants, and working on large-scale public commissions.

Explore some of the diverse work of NAS’s recent Ceramics alumni:

Mechelle Bounpraseuth

Casey Chen

Ryan Hancock

Ben King

Holly Macdonald

Maricelle Oliver

Sassy Park

Yul Scarf

Alichia van Rhijn

Core Subject

This outline for Ceramics Studio Elective 1, a core first year subject at NAS, gives an insight into the foundations of the sculpture program.

Ceramics Studio Elective 1

This first year BFA subject aims to further the creative intellectual and speculative capacity of each student informed by a practical studio experience, and to broadly familiarise students with the body of knowledge that constitutes the Ceramics discipline.

 

Subject Content

This subject follows a program of thematically-based class projects and exercises that explore the fundamental methodologies of scale, construction, form and Ceramic technology including:

  • Selection and preparation of clay to realise and articulate complex form and scale, and investigate historical precedents
  • Practice of the stratagems relevant to developing wheel thrown ceramic form and scale
  • Development of high temperature glaze and firing technology using single variable research techniques
  • Critical discussion of work produced by students in the class
  • Engagement with professional standards of studio practice including Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) guidelines relevant to the Ceramics studio

 

Learning Outcomes

Students who successfully complete this subject will be able to:

  • Demonstrate developing technical competence in wheel-thrown ceramics and understanding of the plastic qualities of clay prepared for use on the wheel
  • Demonstrate the creative potential of surface, form, tension and colour utilising high temperature firing techniques and technology
  • Utilise structure and scale to articulate complex form and surfaces using pinch, coil, slab and wheel thrown components
  • Describe and compare the historical and contemporary perspectives that underscore wheel-thrown ceramics
  • Work co-operatively, undertaking all tasks in accordance with Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) standards relevant to the Ceramics studio

Short Courses

In addition to full degree study, NAS offers an extensive range of Short Courses suited to all ages and experience levels. The courses are taught by practicing artists and are run on campus and online throughout the year, covering every artistic discipline from ceramics to sculpture to photomedia. NAS also offers an extensive school holiday program for all primary and high school students. Visit the Short Course pages for more information about what’s coming up.

Staff

  • Lynda Draper

    Head of Ceramics

  • Joseph Purtle

    Ceramics Tech / Sessional

  • Dr Louise Boscacci

    Ceramics Lecturer

  • Somchai Charoen

    Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Bronwyn Kemp

    Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Madeleine Preston

    Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Tania Rollond

    Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Linda Seiffert

    Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Jenny Orchard

    Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Karen Black

    Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

  • Ebony Russell

    Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

Lynda Draper

Head of Ceramics

B Ed, Grad Dip Visual Arts(UNSW), Ceramics Dip  (National Art School),MFA (UNSW)

Lynda Draper is a visual artist who primarily works in the Ceramic medium. She has been Head of Ceramics at NAS since 2016. Lynda has received numerous national and international awards and grants including a Skills and Development grant and two New Work grants from the Australian Council for the Arts. Awards include the:  Sidney Myer fund Australian Ceramic Award, Premier Acquisition Award at the 54th International Competition of Contemporary Ceramic Art, held at the International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza, Italy; 16th International Gold Coast Award, Gold Coast Regional Gallery and the sass & bide COFA Art Award held at COFA UNSW. In 2010 she completed an MFA at COFA UNSW with the assistance of a Planex scholarship. Lynda’s works have been featured in numerous publications including Vitamin C: New perspectives in Contemporary Art and Clay and Ceramics, Phaidon Press.

Lynda’s works are included in significant National and International collections including at the: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza, Italy; Renwick Alliance Gallery, Smithsonian Institute Washington; Artbank, Australia; Shepparton Art Museum (SAM), Victoria; FA Grue collection, Italy; Collection of the Dutch Royal Family; Myer foundation; Campbelltown City Art Gallery; Wollongong Art Gallery,  Gold Coast City Art Gallery University of Wollongong and the IAC Collection FLICAM Museum, Fuping, China.

Lynda is currently represented in Australia  by Sullivan & Strumpf, Sydney  and internationally by Galerie Lefebvre & Fils, Paris, France.

www.lyndadraper.com

Joseph Purtle

Ceramics Tech / Sessional

BFA (Hons) (NAS)

Joseph Purtle’s practice focuses on wheelthrowing and expressive high-temperature glazes, exploring variations in the firing atmospheres of gas and wood kilns. He was the winner of the FONAS award, 2012, the Kerrie Lowe Gallery Award, 2013, and the Ashley Dawson Damer Award for Excellence in Ceramics, 2013. He has exhibited in Kerrie Lowe Gallery, Mils Gallery, Rex Livingston Gallery and the Sogetsu Ikebana Exhibition at the Botanic Gardens. He is currently undertaking a Masters Degree in Fine Arts and was recently featured in the group exhibition Bang at Pier 2/3 at Walsh Bay.

Dr Louise Boscacci

Ceramics Lecturer

Louise Boscacci is an artist, biologist and process thinker who has worked with the materiality of clay and the possibilities of ceramics for the past two decades. Most recently, a nexus of porcelain-light photography has become a vocabulary of innovation and experimentation in company with sound. She recalls first finding and digging clay in the pause of a north Queensland wet season afternoon as a child, taking it up seriously again as an adult ostensibly to get it out of her system. She has exhibited extensively in Australia, and in international events, since 1997. Boscacci has been a recipient of two Australia Council new work grants as an established artist, and in 2009 was awarded the Australia Council London Studio residency where she studied collections of ancient and historical ceramics in England and Italy alongside the contemporary arts hotspot of metropolitan London.

Somchai Charoen

Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

Somchai Charoen is a Thai born ceramic artist based in Sydney who has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Trained in industrial ceramic design, he was a former lecture at Silpakorn University, Thailand. Since migrating to Australia in 2001, he has worked commercially as a mould and model maker as well as establishing his ceramic homewares label Eat Clay. Somchai has been working with many artists, designers and ceramics companies including Ben Quilty, Hany Armanious, Rod Bamford , Trent Jansen  Mud Australia and Bison Australia. He is a co-founder of Belmore ITCH, a residency for non-ceramic artist to explore and interpret the medium.

Bronwyn Kemp

Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

Bronwyn Kemp was brought up in Broken Hill, NSW. She completed a Certificate course at East Sydney Technical College in 1973, then a Diploma course at the South Australian School of Art in 1975, before setting up her own studio in Walkerville, SA. A visit to Japan in 1976 introduced her to Shino and Oribe ware. In 1979, she trained at the Jam Factory in Adelaide, SA, for four months, then rented studio space there. From 1980, as well as continuing to produce functional ware, she started to make wheel and slab-built sculptural forms decorated with coloured clay as inlays and slips. From 1983-1988, she took over from Jeff Mincham as Head of the Ceramic Workshop at the Jam factory. She is currently based in Sydney, NSW, working with porcelain to make forms decorated with incised line work that derives from local landscapes and bush flora. Her work is marked with an impressed ‘K’ in a square.

Madeleine Preston

Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

Madeleine Preston is a Sydney based artist and tutor in computing for artists and designers at UNSW Art & Design and a sessional lecturer in sculpture and theory in ceramics at the National Art School. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts Theory from the University of Sydney, a diploma of Fine Arts in Painting from East Sydney Technical College (now the National Art School), and a Master of Fine Arts (painting) from RMIT and is the co-director of Home@735 Gallery.

She has exhibited widely, recent exhibitions include On this day alone-Octopus 13 curated by Glenn Barkley, at Gertrude Contemporary, and Glazed and Confused, curated by Lynda Draper, at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney. In 2016 Madeleine was selected for inclusion in The Australian Ceramics Association Biennial show Over Under Sideways Down curated by Glenn Barkley at Manly Art Gallery and Museum and was also a finalist in the Sulman Prize. In 2017 she received the special commendation prize in the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. In 2017 she was awarded an Australia Council Development Grant and a NAVA artist grant and was a resident in the Art Gallery of NSW’s Moya Dyring studio at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.

Tania Rollond

Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

Tania Rollond makes ceramics and drawings, often combining these disciplines. Working between representation and abstraction, she makes drawings on (and about) objects to test the limits of recognition and meaning. Tania holds a Master of Fine Arts (Research) at UNSW Art & Design and a Bachelor of Arts (Design) from Curtin University. She studied ceramics at the National Art School and has been a lecturer there since 2004, and has also taught ceramics at UNSW and TAFE. She has been exhibiting regularly since 2001, and her work is held in the collections of Bendigo Art Gallery, Shepparton Art Museum, and FLICAM, Fuping, China, as well as many private collections in Australia and internationally.

Linda Seiffert

Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

Linda Seiffert creates distinctive sculptural forms which inquire into the mystery, diversity and dynamism of nature. Her body of work incorporates both ceramic tradition, natural and found materials with frequent site specific installations and public works.

Graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Ceramics) from The National Art School Sydney, she was awarded the Graduating Student Award for excellence and has since received a myriad of accolades for her distinctive sculptures.

Her recent research and works explore the transitional zones between the man made & natural environment. A consideration of the incongruity of these diverse environs, and her work exists as both testament of human separation from the natural world and is an evocative affirmation of our inarguable place within it.

Jenny Orchard

Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

Jenny Orchard is a contemporary artist and has had a career in ceramics, sculpture and art making since 1980. She is passionate about exploring liminal states of being and celebrating the diversity of material form.

Jenny is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, State and Regional galleries across Australia, and in Japanese, American and UK collections. She has exhibited widely, participating in International shows and conferences such as the second Jakarta Ceramics Biennale in 2014, Art from Australia at the Gail Museum in Seoul, and Uncertain Paradise at the Imazoo gallery Seoul 2015. Her work has featured in Sculptural Objects and Functional Art at Chicago and Miami, Ceramic Art from Australia at the Tao Gallery Tokyo and Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Karen Black

Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

Karen graduated from Queensland College of the Art, Griffith University in 2011 with a Bachelor of Fine Art. In 2019, Karen was the recipient of the Stonehouse Glasshouse residency in France. The residency culminated in an exhibition of ceramics and paintings.

Her work has been exhibited at Art Basel HK, Art Stage Singapore, Art Taipei, and Tokyo Art Fair. Her works are held in prestigious public collections including Monash University Museum of Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Australian War Memorial, Griffith University Art Gallery, Artbank, Macquarie Bank Collection, QUT Art Museum, Museum of Brisbane, Shepparton Art Museum and the Salsali Private Museum in Dubai, in addition to various private collections both in Australia and overseas. Finalist in the Sidney Myer Australian Ceramic Prize in 2017.

Represented by Sullivan & Strumpf, Sydney and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

  • +61 2 9339 8744

Ebony Russell

Ceramics Lecturer (Sessional)

Ebony Russell in an artist and educator with broad experience of teaching and arts administration in primary and secondary education throughout Australia. Her art practice is based within the ceramic tradition and engages with a range of issues specifically related to the ceramic medium and craft practices. Her expertise extends across tradition ceramic techniques into experimental ceramics and installation. Ebony has also worked as a project coordinator and workshop facilitator with indigenous art centres and art fairs including the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair and The National Indigenous Art Fair, Sydney. In her administrative roles she has been appointed as Head of Department in multiple colleges and has held the role of regional coordinator – North Queensland Secondary Schools Creative Generation Excellence Awards. Ebony’s work has been exhibited in both commercial and public galleries throughout Australia, New Zealand and internationally. In 2019 was awarded the prestigious Franz Rising Star Award for Excellence in Porcelain.

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