Lynda Draper, DRIFTING MOON, installation view, 2023. Courtesy: the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.

One of Australia’s most respected contemporary artists working in the ceramics field, Lynda Draper is known to consistently push the medium’s technical limits and conventional aesthetics.  Created by a combination of pinching and coiling hand building techniques, her skeletal structures evolve intuitively, each part gradually cultivating the connective tissue of the work.  Often towering into the air, they appear ethereal in nature, yet are instilled with the permanence and resilience of fired clay.

For her latest exhibition, DRIFTING MOON, the Illawara-based artist has created a new series of works inspired by memories of the magical road trips taken by her parents and siblings in the 1960s and 70s.

From suburban Sydney to snow-tipped peaks, red deserts, coral-rich coastlines and tropical rainforests, Draper’s family would drive all night to reach their destination, revelling in the discoveries to come, the promise of adventure.

To this day, she remembers the thrill of anticipation in the lead-up to these journeys, lovingly crafted by her father – a schoolteacher who never missed an opportunity to encourage his children’s interest and curiosity.

A celebration of the curiosity and imagination of youth, DRIFTING MOON invites audiences to engage with these sculptural representations of Draper’s childhood memories – her wonderment at nature; at the colossal roadside monuments taking the form of lobster, pineapple, prawn, mango and banana; and at the quirky old-time local museums her family visited, many now long gone.

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