Link V: Object-based Practice
in Gold and Silversmithing and Ceramics

7 June to 17 June 2011

Roseanne Bartley
Janet Beckhouse (Korakas)
Ineke Heerkens
Amy Kennedy

Curated by Mark Edgoose and Sally Cleary

This series of exhibitions acknowledges the long-standing contributions and achievements of the School of Art's alumni. Link V will feature artists from the Gold and Silversmithing and Ceramics studios.

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Essay

Object-based Practice in Ceramics

The ceramic artworks of Janet Backhouse and Amy Kennedy at first glance may seem to be poles apart. This is the nature of ceramics, and the diverse applications of form and process that are inherent to the tactile material of clay. Through the alchemic transformation of firing, the works of these two artists have been transformed into organic sculptural art works—in both a physical and metaphysical sense—where the work has taken on a life of their own through the process of making, and the seamless skills applied their practice. Both artists' careers have flourished since completing their degrees at RMIT University, School of Art, and have been selected for this exhibition to celebrate their dedication to their practice and skilled attention to detail.

Sally Cleary, Studio Coordinator, Ceramics

Janet Beckhouse (Korakas)

I believe the origin of all creative expression derives from an interaction with the natural world. Not literal interpretations but personal visions of what is felt and seen. I wish to evoke a deeper realm of the imagination. Not just physical but of the soul—where beauty and order, chaos and phobias form a delicate balance. The classical eras of Europe and Asia, the Rococo period, early 20th century Australian ceramics, and frequent excursions to the sea and country help form personal expressions and emotional responses in the work.

Janet Beckhouse (Korakas) has exhibited consistently since completing her Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Honours at RMIT University in 2000. Since 1999 Janet has exhibited in eight solo exhibitions and 38 group exhibitions. Her work has been collected by a number of private and public institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria and various regional galleries. Janet Beckhouse is represented by Skepsi Gallery, Melbourne.

Amy Kennedy

In my sculptural works, fine, paper-thin leaves of glaze material are assembled to form layered objects. Working with delicacy and movement, I use the flowing layers—like the opening pages of a book or fluttering piles of fabric—to create a windblown or whirlpool effect leading inwards, often to a hidden core. Energy and movement within the work is assisted by the gentle softening that occurs during the firing process, giving sculptures the capacity to hover, tilt or extend, as if once animated. It is capturing this energy and creating work that is seemingly made and found simultaneously, that is a particular aspiration.

Amy Kennedy graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Honours from RMIT University in 2006, having previously completed a Diploma of Ceramics at Box Hill Institute of TAFE. She has been selected twice for Fresh at Craft Victoria, receiving the Jeremy Dillon Photography Award in 2005. In 2008 Amy undertook a three-month residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre, The Netherlands, and was awarded The Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship for Emerging Artists. Most recently Amy has been granted a 2012 residency at the Anderson Ranch Arts Centre, Colorado. Her work is represented in the collections of The Bendigo Regional Art Gallery and The European Ceramic Work Centre. Amy Kennedy is represented by Skepsi Gallery, Melbourne.

Essay

Object-based Practice in Gold and Silversmithing

As storytellers using the material and metaphorical language of jewellery, Roseanne Bartley and Ineke Heerkens trace the relationships between material, body, culture and environment in the work presented in Link V: Object-based Practice. Bartley explores a relationship to place and culture through her engagement with recovered discarded materials and ephemeral experiences to talk of status and the everyday in a process she describes as surface-archaeology. While Heerkens embraces everyday objects that are designed for human use and comfort and plays in a humorous way with their transformation in scale and the lush choices in material.

Mark Edgoose, Studio Coordinator undergraduate, Gold and Silversmithing

Roseanne Bartley

In crafting an intersection between material culture and conceptual practice (contemporary jewellery/ performance/interactivity), Bartley addresses the decorative or supplementary nature of jewellery and designs a strategy to activate jewellery as a process through which to mediate a global environmental issue. In doing so Bartley offers an intimate tangible experience that invites us to recalibrate established notions of preciousness and re-imagine our relationship to matter, place and time.

Roseanne Bartley has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally since the 1990's. In 2006 she was a finalist in the Cecily and Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award and the City of Hobart Art Prize. Roseanne has received a number of awards and grants including an Australia Council Skills Development grant (Barcelona Residency, 2004). As well as making jewellery and relational artworks, Roseanne writes frequently about the role jewellery plays in our lives. In 2006 Roseanne completed a Masters of Arts by Research at RMIT University, School of Art.

Ineke Heerkens

Sequences of photographs depict a man lounging in a cushioned garden chair, reading the paper. He is pivoting in the chair, putting his legs across the armrest, and hanging upside down, even turning the chair onto its back, spread-eagling himself. What carries whom, who carries what? In each of the snapshots the man maintains full body contact with the chair, they merge into one form. Each posture of man and chair is a distorted, skewed, slanted, strong, weird form; it is movement frozen in time. We are surrounded by furniture and embraced by the warmth and comfort of everyday items that are designed for human needs, fitted to a human scale. (Monika Auch, December 2008).

Ineke Heerkens studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie from 1996 to 2001 and studied Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT University in 1999 as an international exchange student. Ineke has participated in numerous international exhibitions in Europe and the USA. She has recently exhibited a solo exhibition ‘Windland' at Gallery Marzee in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In conjunction with her art-making practice, Ineke has been involved with curatorial projects and the concept and realization of the jewellery pop-up store Auf Vorrat/Op Voorraad/In Stock, with Jantje Fleischhut and Jeanette Jansen. She has works in the Marzee Collection, Nijmegen, and the CODA Museum, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.

Ineke Heerkens is represented by Galerie Marzee, Nijmegen, The Netherlands