Stewart Scambler: Fragment (expired event)

Both the material and aesthetic qualities of the local landscape remain central to Scambler’s practice as a potter.

Arriving in Perth from England as a young boy, Stewart Scambler was struck by the natural environment and, in particular, the intense light of Western Australia. Both the material and aesthetic qualities of the local landscape remain central to Scambler’s practice as a potter. On his property at York in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, the artist grows trees to stoke his wood-fired kiln and collects materials to make his own clay body. His glazes take on the earthy, muted colours of the Australian bush, enlivened by tonal variation and surface markings that emerge during the firing process.

Though Scambler continues to produce the vessels and domestic ware that he is well-known for, this exhibition presents a new body of work - a striking assembly of large-scale sculptural forms and murals, inspired by the artist’s journey through the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of Western Australia. The installation seeks to convey something of the experience of being in these places: The sculptures do not imitate natural phenomena, but rather capture key features of the landscape, such as the sharp-edged profiles of gorges and rock formations, and the rich, red earth of the North.