In residence, 2021
NMTafe, Northbridge
As idle hands have become increasingly drawn to art as a way to pass the time, in residence brings together hand built and wheel thrown ceramics which reflect the current desperation for hobbies, and ultimately, the banal outcomes of these new found hobbies. Through the marriage of ceramics, printmaking and haiku, in residence is a body of work which ruminates on the current state of the mundane, as both keenly present and simultaneously evasive.
Informed by the shifting parameters of normalcy, these works endeavour to capture the at-times humorous aspects of living out a pandemic in the most isolated city in the world, while trying to look for a house.
Produced while in residence at NMTafe’s shopfront gallery, ceramics perforate the already permeable membrane between art and the everyday. Produced during the height of rental crisis, the plates function as an archive of a space we briefly lived, worked, ate and had at least one (opening) party. Despite the overwhelming mundanity of the situation, the plates function as a reminder that our access to the building with wooden floors, central location, high ceilings and vintage accents - like our own rental homes, was fleeting. While these spaces left us with an impression, we ultimately erased our own in time for the new occupants.
The clay is a reference to the popularity of pandemic hobbies, where idle hands became increasingly drawn to art as a way to pass the time – with generally bland and at times gumpy outcomes proliferating. In the background of this new found creativity, professional artists floundered as paid opportunities dissolved and the spectre of cost of living forced many artists back into ‘real jobs’. The works therefore wryly embrace function, because form is getting us nowhere.