Juz Kitson joins Dominik Mersch Gallery
Sydney gallery adds new artist to its stable.
Words: Erin Irwin
Dominik Mersch Gallery is now representing installation artist and ceramicist Juz Kitson. The artist joins the Sydney gallery’s strong stable of national and international names, including the likes of Jon Cattapan, Janet Laurence, Dani Marti, Philip Wolfhagen, Lottie Consalvo and Elger Esser.
The Sydney-born artist creates works she describes as “quietly seductive. They are provocative, because underneath they are quite disgusting. … They are hybrids of nature.” Working between Milton on NSW’s south coast and China’s porcelain capital, Jingdezhen, Kitson’s art practice brings together hand-crafted porcelain and materials sourced from the Australian landscape, such as animal pelts, husks and tusks. The resulting works are a disquieting blend of the organic and the man-made, creating pieces that are both beautiful and disturbing.
Kitson attended the National Art School in Sydney, undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Ceramics) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours (Ceramics). While completing her Honours, Collector and philanthropist David Walsh acquired her body of work ‘Formations of Silence’ for his Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania.
She has also featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Primavera and the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, and her work his held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank and RMIT University, among others. Kitson has been a finalist in the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award (2019), The Alice Prize (2018), and the Wynne Prize (2017), as well as several other major prizes.
See Kitson’s work at Dominik Mersch’s forthcoming group show Secret Garden, opening Friday 11 September. Her debut solo with the gallery is slated for 2021.
Kitson is also represented by GAGPROJECTS in Adelaide and Jan Murphy Gallery in Brisbane.
Image courtesy: the artist and Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney.
