Coming up

Anna Battersby / Susan Chen / Allegra Holmes /
Kristi Pupo/ Sophie Temmhoff / Renee Rekes

Opening Event / Wednesday 19 September, 6 – 8pm
Runs Thu 20 – Sun 30 September 2018

Drawing on the legacy of artists like Mary Kelly and Mierle Laden Ukeles, this exhibition contests the conventionally accepted ideas of who artists are and what art can be. Women’s Work is an exhibition for artists working with media traditionally associated with craft practice. All participating artists have a studio practice based in ceramics.

When working with ceramics in contemporary art, there is still a pervading sense that one must justify ceramics as a valid medium for art. In this way, ceramics is something of a metaphor for the way women continue to have to justify themselves as artists. Women’s Work is comprised of a variety of artworks, including installation, live performance, video performance, ceramics and textile works.

Chen’s exploration of 3D ceramic printing offers an innovative approach to the ceramic medium, removing the trace of the artist’s hand while still engaging in the specific materiality of clay. Similarly, Battersby and Pupo engage in the process of making, embracing the elemental aspects of ceramic process to draw out meaning in their work. Holmes and Temmhoff both explore concepts of female embodiment materializing in intimate and abject artworks that address notions of feminism, motherhood and the body. Adeney uses quotidian objects and materials incorporating glass, ceramic and textile to create complex installations that draw on the memory of objects. This show marks Rekes’ return to studio practice, which previously focused on the meditative properties of wheel throwing and examining how this has manifested in her non-studio making.

Women’s Work furthers the position that art and craft are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as the artists included in this exhibition both embrace and subvert craft practices and mediums. This exhibition challenges the validity of the enduring attitude that there is a ‘type’ of work that women artists make, while shining a light on the inherent negativity attached to the term ‘women’s work’.

Artists Biographies

Anna Battersby

Anna Battersby is a contemporary artist whose ceramics and sculptural installations are a mixture of abstraction, symbolism and materiality. Stepping outside of the more traditional practices of ceramics, she is interested in the entanglement of artist and material, and captures unique gestural moments within her works. She invites the viewer to contemplate ideas of fragility and ephemerality through these subtle material explorations. Battersby is a recent graduate of Sydney College of the Arts, completing her BVA with First Class Honours in 2017.

Susan Chen

Susan Chen’s practice combines an interest in sociology and aspects of human psychology, in particular, the human experience within the current digital and online world. Her works are often experimental and data driven, constantly challenging the perception of traditional ceramic making techniques.

Chen is a Sydney based ceramic artist who creates both functional and sculptural artwork. She completed her Master of Fine Arts (Ceramics) at The Sydney College of the Arts in 2017. Her research highlighted the prevalence of social media use in our digitally obsessed culture, in which she harnessed digital data to create, through the aid of a 3D ceramic printer, tangible representations of the different personalities that engage in social media.

Previously she completed a Bachelor of Design (Industrial), with honours in 2004 and a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Ceramics) with first class honours in 2012. Currently she is exploring the possibilities of 3D printing in the ceramic medium and the new dialogue this creates between art, craft and design.

Allegra Holmes

Allegra Holmes’ art making practice centres on investigating and materializing concepts of pregnant and maternal embodiment, feminism, and intimacy. Holmes actively rejects the notion that the roles of mother and artist are mutually exclusive, and has developed her art making practice as one that is intrinsically linked with the daily work of raising her children. 2017 saw Holmes complete her BVA with First Class Honours, as well as the birth of her second child. Holmes has recently commenced her Master of Fine Art candidature at Sydney College of the Arts, furthering her research into the feminist politics of physiological mothering practices and art making with two young children.

Kristi Pupo

Following the completion of her Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) in 2011, Kristi Pupo travelled the islands of Indonesia for five years. Pupo spent this time exploring her inner truths and examining her earth bound relationships with people, places and material objects. This lead to the contemplation of alternate fields of existence, which Pupo continues to explore in her practice predominately through installation and ceramics; with dalliances in performance and painting.

In late 2014 Pupo co-founded Heyokah Art House, an artist run initative in Ubud, Bali. The gallery specializes in painting and ceramics, as well as running community art programs. In 2015, Pupo founded the children’s clothing label Little Bird Collective, inspired by the incomparably creative process of raising her son, Noah. In 2017 Pupo returned to Sydney as a single mother. In this tumultuous period of her life, coloured porcelain and the meditative act of throwing has become the centre point of her studio practice.

Renee Rekes

Since graduating with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 2010, Renee Rekes began her art making practice using ceramics, predominantly thrown objects, as a form of healing and meditation. Rekes then went on to work in the mental health field where she used her art making in therapeutic settings with her clients. Since the birth of her first child in 2015, Rekes’ focus shifted and she began exploring media that is traditionally associated with craft, beading, textiles and most recently cake decorating. This body of work explores themes surrounding motherhood, loss of identity and a gained new perspective by drawing on Rekes’ previous style and love of texture through the use of edible media.

Sophie Temmhoff

Sophie Temmhoff explores the link between inner and outer self; with the feminine tale exposed through texture, shape and form. Time passes and leaves its mark on us all. Our bodies tell our stories, the marks left in flesh and the wandering liminality of tales past and present push through skin to the fore. Temmhoff began her practice in ceramics, and in the past 3 years has moved into working with fibre. She is a candidate for a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Federation University. The works she creates exist as objects outside of physicality; yet still stand as an inextricable link to the psyche and her physical body.