A joint exhibition brings together exciting new ceramic artworks by Pippin Drysdale and Warrick Palmateer for the first time and explores their unique collaboration.
These significant new bodies of work, created especially for this exhibition, contrast each artist’s own distinctive passion for different aspects of Australia’s natural environment and their decades long obsession with perfection.
John Curtin Gallery Director Chris Malcolm said the exhibition interrogates the unique and highly successful relationship between the artists as well as showcasing groundbreaking new forms.
“Confluence honours and explores the compelling collaborative processes through which these two artists are able to conjure some of the most breathtaking ceramic forms being made in Australia today. The ceramic works in Confluence boldly contrast each artist’s distinctive aesthetic language and celebrates their passion for different aspects of Australia’s natural environment that so deeply informs their work.” Mr Malcolm said.
Public Program
Tuesday 30 October at 5.30-7.30pm: Pippin Drysdale and Warrick Palmateer Artists Talk
See https://jcg.curtin.edu.au for other related events
Pippin Drysdale is widely considered one of Australia’s foremost ceramic artists and was formally recognised as one of Western Australia’s State Living Treasures in 2015. Over a career spanning four decades, Drysdale has developed a significant international reputation for her distinctive vessels, drawing inspiration in recent decades from the ancient landscapes of Australia’s interior desert country. She regularly exhibits internationally and her work is held in major private and public collections across Australia and throughout the world. Her latest ceramic forms include suites of Devil’s Marbles, inspired by the striking rock formations in the Karlu Karlu / Devil’s Marbles Conservation Reserve, a significant Aboriginal sacred site in Australia’s central Northern Territory. The porcelain forms that constitute Drysdale’s installations engage with a fresh, comprehensive and daring colour palette that evokes surreal and ‘magical’ desert light effects. This series also highlights Drysdale’s shift from displays of single pots to installations of groups of vessels.
Warrick Palmateer has been a practicing potter for over thirty years. He has been collaborating with Pippin Drysdale for the past twenty-five years during which time he became increasingly responsible for the manual production of Drysdale’s open and closed forms, all thrown on the wheel in her Fremantle studio. While they have consistently collaborated through this special partnership, Palmateer has also steadily cultivated his own distinctive arts practice.
Images:
Pippin Drysdale, Breakaway, (DM II series), 2018, glazed porcelain, dimensions variable. Image by Robert Frith, Acorn
Warrick Palmateer, Beacon Buoy, 2018, 105 x 105cm, Western Australian Kiln Fired Earth, Image by Robert Frith, Acorn.