Kohl Tyler, The first flower, 2024, ceramic stoneware, dolomite glaze, 206 x 112 x 125mm. Courtesy of MARS and the artist.
Ceramics Now brings together the sculptural works of six ceramicists whose practices are a testament to the diversity and endurance of ceramic forms. Collating Angelo Ooi’s traditional techiques, Ruth Li’s botanical meditations, Zhu Ohmu’s organic vessels, Kohl Tyler’s ephemeral forms, Pip Byrne’s playful textures and Honor Freeman’s sculptural mimesis, Ceramics Now celebrates the contemporary artists who are reinventing one of the oldest, most universal mediums.
Pip Byrne is a Melbourne-based ceramicist whose ceramics capture moments of simplicity and scenes of light and play. With an interest in scale, playfulness, form and texture, Byrne uses various hand-building techniques to create pieces that aren’t limited by traditional forms and ideas.
Honor Freeman is a South Australian-based artist whose playful forms mimic the domestic and routine, using the materiality of porcelain to question ideas of fragility and preservation that are bound up in our daily lives. Freeman’s work is held in collections aroud Australia, including the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of South Australia.
A celebration of renewal, natural cycles of life and the passing of time, Ruth Li’s sculptures speak in the universal language of flowers. Li’s work is held in collections around Australia, China and Taiwan.
Angelo Ooi’s ceramic practice takes us back to traditional techniques, ceramic chemistry and process. Seeing each vessel as unique, like a human body, Ooi masterfully marries technique and organic forms to achieve a dynamic practice.
Zhu Ohmu’s practice sits at the intersection of nature, tradition and technology. Emulating the mechanized processes of machines, but by hand, Ohmu’s technique imitates nature, leaving the process to intuition. Ohmu has exhibited her work aorund Australia and is held in collections including Shepparton Art Museum and Artbank.
Aotearoa/New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist Kohl Tyler draws on botanical ecology and otherwordly forms in her practice. Tyler’s delicate vessels draw on future ecologies, imagined organic remnants and investigates the natural archive. Her work is held in the collection of the Gippsland Art Gallery, VIC and in private collections throughout Australia and Aotearoa.
