Ceramics

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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 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

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.

Mechelle graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the National Art School. She has worked as an Arts Facilitator at Casula Powerhouse Museum and Campbelltown Arts Centre and has taught workshops and classes centred around her practice as an artist, handbuilding techniques and various other techniques including coiling, pinch pots, slab rolling and glazing.

Paul has a Master of Fine Arts from the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. His professional practice is diverse. Spanning 20 years, his studio work includes painting, drawing, ceramics, textiles and installation. His works, both group and solo, have been exhibited locally and nationally. He has worked as a lecturer at the University of Wollongong and UNSW.