This exhibition of ceramics from the University of Western Australia Art Collection and the

Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, in partnership with the City of Perth Library, is a UWA Away Project.

Down to Earth

23 MAY - 9 AUGUST 2017

Stewart Scambler, Column, 2013, woodfired stoneware, 37 x 14 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the Friends of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 2013

DOWN TO EARTHDespite originating from different countries, namely Australia, China and Thailand, the ceramics displayed in Down to Earth are intertwined in terms of both the themes that influenced their creators and the processes through which they were made. Within this exhibition, observable links permeate the ceramics in several ways. Firstly, several of the works represent the local Western Australian landscape, through visual depiction or through processes that rely on local materials. Other Australian ceramists such as Milton Moon and Joan Campbell have used processes that reflect Zen Buddhism, in simplicity and natural asymmetry. In contrast, the ceramics from Thailand and China showcase a more precise approach to the firing process, in order to achieve specific glaze colourings. Down to Earth explores a total of 12 ceramic objects, from the University of Western Australia Art Collection and the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art at the University of Western Australia.

The ceramics by Pippin Drysdale, Guy Grey-Smith and Robert Juniper all visually represent the Western Australian landscape through varying degrees of figuration and abstraction. Drysdale’s work from the Logging on Parchment series utilises the flat face of the plate as a surface on which to paint felled trees, drawing attention to the effect of die-back on the forests of Western Australia.1 Here, Drysdale’s style figuratively captures the landscape, while the influence of abstraction is apparent in the simplified, sweeping brushstrokes,

particularly in the sky and tree trunks. Grey-Smith’s untitled work, featuring blue/purple bobtail lizards against a harmonious pink background, again pushes at the boundaries between European abstraction of form and figurative representation of distinctly Australian subject matter. The use of a hand-painted slip2 to describe the lizards has allowed for a painterly treatment of the subject matter and abstraction of form into curvilinear brushstrokes. Juniper’s untitled ceramic landscape pushes abstraction even further, with a considered focus on harmonising colour and simplifying forms in a bird’s-eye view of the Western Australian landscape.3 This can invoke different emotional responses, such as awe, at the sheer vastness of the landscape.

Another way the landscape has been represented by the Australian ceramists in this exhibition is through the use of materials that come directly from the land. This is seen in the processes through which Stewart Scambler and Joan Campbell make their ceramics. Scambler uses a woodfiring technique that directly mirrors the Fremantle/York landscapes where the ceramics were created. Scambler sources local clay as well as using wood for firing that is native to the Western Australian environment, including York gum, black sheoak and acacia acuminata.4 The wood creates different coloured glazes, and the drips of ash trace delicate patterns across the pots. Furthermore, during the firing process the pots are rested on sea shells, which

Guy Grey-Smith, untitled (platter with bobtail lizard design), n.d, hand-painted slip on earthenware, 28 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Cherry Lewis, 2014

are later removed to reveal visible patches of orange clay.5 Similarly, Campbell also sources local clay from Western Australia, although Campbell uses a raku firing technique.6 Sometimes, while the ceramics are still hot from the kiln, Campbell places them into pits in the ground that are filled with local materials like seaweed or leaves that combust to pattern the surface of the clay.7

The working processes of both Campbell and Milton Moon reflect the influence of Japanese Zen Buddhism, which manifests in art through an appreciation for simplicity and asymmetry. The Japanese technique of raku firing used by Campbell reflects Zen, as raku requires coarse clay and quick firing, resulting in a work that has a degree of natural roughness and wholesomeness.8 Moon was also directly influenced by Zen Buddhism. Moon spent a year in Japan in 1974, where he learnt about Japanese pottery and meditation.9 The Japanese tea masters favoured ceramics that showed humanity through imperfection and spontaneity, characteristics that are evident in Moon’s ceramics due to his use of a hand-wheel to throw pots, which results in more asymmetry than a mechanised wheel.10 The roughness of both Campbell and Moon’s pottery, elegant in its simplicity, also harks back to the Australian landscape and the asymmetrical forms found in nature.

Visual simplicity is created through different processes in the ceramics of Mengrai Kilns in Thailand and the Chinese ceramics in the style of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), all of which showcase works glazed in a single colour. Mengrai Kilns use a translucent green, crackled glaze called Celadon.11 The glaze is made from a mixture of silt from paddy fields and ash from specific types of wood, and fired under high temperatures with carefully controlled levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in order to achieve the Celadon colour. The delicate cracks in the glaze are formed as the ceramics cool after firing, due to different temperatures between the clay and the glaze.12 Similarly, it is likely that the black glaze coating the untitled ceramic from the Yuan Dynasty would have been created through a process in which all variables have been carefully controlled. During the Yuan Dynasty, black glazes were made by covering the ceramics with a slip glaze of dark brown, and then applying a second darker glaze over this, made from iron oxide.13 Through controlling the amount of iron oxide, the temperature, and the atmosphere, the glaze can vary from a rusty brown to a lustrous black. During this period, the glaze rarely reached the foot of the ceramics, indicative of the abandonment of refined surface glazes that is characteristic of the Yuan Dynasty.14

Robert Juniper, untitled (landscape), c 1984, ceramic, 44.3 x 45 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Dr Ian Bernadt, 1996

1. Ted Snell, Pippin Drysdale: Lines of Site (Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Press, 2007), 75.

2. Andrew Gaynor, Guy Grey-Smith: Life Force (Crawley, WA: University of Western Australia Publishing, 2012), 161.

3. Trevor Smith, “The Symbolist Landscape,” in Robert Juniper, ed. Trevor Smith (Perth, WA: Art Gallery of Western Australia, 1999), 11.

4. “Stewart and Trish Scambler” (artist’s webpage), accessed April 29, 2017, http://www.stscambler.com.au/woodfired/

5. “Stewart and Trish Scambler” (artist’s webpage)

6. Luceille Hanley, “Joy in Making”, in Joan Campbell, potter, ed. Luceille Hanley (Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1984), 8

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., 8-23

9. Margot Osborne, “A conversation with Milton Moon on approaching the intangible,” Artlink 26, no. 4 (2006): 64, accessed 29 April, 2017, http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.library.uwa.edu.au/fullText;dn=200701576;res=IELAPA

10. Milton Moon, “Around and around- slowly but surely”, Ceramics Technical 25 (2007): 101, accessed 27 April, 2017, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.uwa.edu.au/ehost/detail/detail?sid=d16ba3a9-b002-4219-95d6-f52e5ce24dab%40sessionmgr4009&vid=0&hid=4101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=27748327&db=a2h

11. “Mengrai Kilns” (artist webpage), accessed April 27, 2017, http://www.mengraikilns.com/celadon.asp?lan=eng

12. Ibid.

13. Margaret Medley, Yuan Porcelain and Stoneware (London, Faber and Faber, 1974), 121

14. Ibid.

Through depictions of the Australian landscape and examples of the various processes used to make ceramics, Down to Earth explores a range of ceramics from different cultural backgrounds, uncovering several observable links between the works. Ceramics, as a medium, can be vessels for the visual depiction of the landscape and the ideas that have informed their creation, as well as the physical use of materials derived directly from the landscape. In this, ceramics are objects that can be made from the same earth, through clay, colours and ash, that they embody. It all comes down to earth.

Grace Huffer Curator, Down to Earth

Mengrai Kilns, Plate, c 1978, ceramic with celadon glaze, 26.5 x 5 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Mengrai Kilns, Thailand, 1978

Guy Grey-Smith, untitled (platter with bobtail lizard design), n.d, hand-painted slip on earthenware, 28 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Cherry Lewis, 2014

Joan Campbell, Green Spirit, 1976, raku fired clay, 50 x 40 x 40 cm, Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, The University of Western Australia, CCWA 817

Mengrai Kilns, Plate, c 1978, ceramic with celadon glaze, 26.5 x 5 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Mengrai Kilns, Thailand, 1978

Mengrai Kilns, Mallet Vase, c 1978, ceramic with celadon glaze, 29.5 x 14 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Mengrai Kilns, Thailand, 1978

Milton Moon, River Red Gum series, 1990, stoneware, 68.8 cm x 31 x 31 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the artist, 1990

Milton Moon, Waterhole, 1987, stoneware, 55. 8 x 6.2 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, University Senate Grant, 1990

Pippin Drysdale, Logging on Parchment series, 1989, porcelain, 53 x 9 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the artist, 1990

Robert Juniper, untitled (landscape), c 1984, ceramic, 44.3 x 45 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Dr Ian Bernadt, 1996

Song Dynasty; in the style of (960-1279), untitled, n.d, green slip glazed stoneware, 22.8 x 17.7 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Dr Albert Gild, 1974

Stewart Scambler, Column, 2013, woodfired stoneware, 37 x 14 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the Friends of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 2013

Stewart Scambler, Spherical Jar, 2013, woodfired stoneware, 30 x 30 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the Friends of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 2013

Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), untitled, c. mid 14th Century, black iron glazed stoneware, 17.5 x 17 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of Dr Albert Gild, 1974

LIST OF WORKS

Pippin Drysdale, Logging on Parchment series, 1989, porcelain, 53 x 9 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the artist, 1990

Milton Moon, River Red Gum series, 1990, stoneware, 68.8 cm x 31 x 31 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Gift of the artist, 1990

Published by the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at The University of Western Australia, 2017. All rights reserved. ISBN 978 1 876793 88 3

CURATOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSGrace Huffer, curator of Down to Earth, would like to thank Ted Snell, Chief Cultural Officer at the University of Western Australia (UWA); Kate Hamersley, Registrar for the UWA Art Collection; and Gemma Weston, Curator of the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art; for their help, advice and support. Thank you to Joanna Andrew and Susan Marie at the City of Perth Library for their partnership with the UWA Away Project and for providing the exhibition space. Finally, thanks also to all of the staff at the UWA Cultural Precinct and the installation team.

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Cover image: Joan Campbell, Green Spirit, 1976, raku fired clay, 50 x 40 x 40 cm, Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, The University of Western Australia, CCWA 817