Clunes Ceramic Award Exhibition 2019

Union Bank Arts Centre, Cluns

Official opening & announcement of winners

Saturday 28 September: 6.00pm to 8.00pm

Guest Judge: Chris Weaver

The Clunes Ceramic Award is an initiative of Creative Clunes Inc. and is in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ballarat and the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum.

Opening Hours
10:30 am – 4:30 pm Thursday to Sunday

Shir-Lama’alot (Song of Ascents) 390x440x280mm

explores protection, spiritual arming and resilience, as metaphors for cultural place and belonging. Hebrew script imprinted within the delicate surfaces represents a secret prayer. Traditionally rolled in parchment and placed inside a case (Mezuzah), this prayer is attached to a home doorpost to offer protection. Incorporated within this work, these scripts are carried by sixteen clay vessels bonded together, signifying a ceremonial procession of an ascending prayer. In uniting repetitive singular elements, Shir-Lama’alot awakens a conversation about people, the individuals that connect to a group and the sense of security within. Informed by my cultural background, it is an object of fortitude and unification, bringing the poetics of the past into the present to question the future.

The artwork is comprised of multiple ceramic vertical structures formed with a delicate translucent clay created through layering ceramic glaze materials. These vertical structures are carried and supported by 16 reiterated robust clay vessels bonded together. The stability of this form and its ability to support multiple elements reminds us of the security of belonging, the singular being supported by the whole. The form is dynamic, rising upwards, representing (as the title suggests) a journey or a ceremonial procession of an ascending prayer.

Stoneware clay, porcelain slip, glaze materials, metal, textured fabric, screen-print stain application, dry glaze

Click to view finalists announcement