Design and Art Australia Online

My work uses art historical references to investigate how the attitudes of the past inform the present. I use display conventions to create installations that imply alternative histories by creating environments that reference domestic and museum spaces. My recent work is comprised of textiles, copper, ceramic and plaster forms. My textile work includes wearable felt sculptures with ceramic and copper elements. My work is often contextualised by accompanying texts I write and publish as limited editions.

Ceramics and sculpture have become a major focus of my work since undertaking a residency in 2014 with Lynda Draper at the TAFE Sydney Institute Ceramic Design Studio. My work was selected as a finalist in the 2015 City of Hobart Art Prize, the 2016 64th Blake Prize and the 2016 Sulman Prize. A chapter on my work was published in the Thames and Hudson Book CLAY in 2016. And in 2017 I won the Woollahra Small Sculpture special commendation prize with my felt and ceramic sculpture Smokers Behind the Sheds – After Guston.

In 2017 I was awarded the Art Gallery of NSW Moya Dyring Studio at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris; and in July 2018 was one of 16 international artists selected for the Slade/Camden Arts Centre London Summer Intensive residency. I received a Development Grant from the Australia Council and a NAVA Artists Grant for the Cité residency and a Copyright Agency Limited Ignite Grant for the Slade/Camden Arts Centre residency.

In July 2018 I was awarded a Sculpture Fellowship residency from the Vermont Studio Centre (VSC) in the United States. The Residency was undertaken in April 2019. The VSC residency, like the Cité internationale des Arts residency and the Slade/ Camden Arts residency, involved working away from the structures and supports I knew in Sydney. This change in environment grew my professional networks and develop new directions in my work.

Writers:

Madeleine Preston

Date written:

2019

Last updated:

2019