A form of visual expression that engages in a broad range of media and experiences, ceramics commands a powerful presence in the contemporary art world. JULIA JONES reports...

Today, ceramics mixes widely with other forms of visual art while speaking with a distinctive voice of its own. This has been recently illuminated by a number of events in the Australian ceramic art world, including exhibitions, prizes and dining events. Ceramics is well known for its utilitarian function, but has many other roles: aesthetic, sculptural, political, religious and deeply symbolic. It draws on the forms, functions and stylistic developments of ceramic history and fuses these with other contemporary visual art practices to create its own unique form of visual expression. The recent national ceramics exhibition Australian Ceramic Stories highlighted the cross-disciplinary practice occurring between ceramics and other forms of visual art, as well as literature. Held at the Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, New South Wales, in April and May 2008, the exhibition explored ceramic narrative in an Australian context. It engaged with the ideas and definitions outlined in The Ceramic Narrative (2006) by Canadian ceramic artist and writer Matthias Ostermann, the keynote speaker at the exhibition forum. Opened by Janet Mansfield (aAR Issue 9), President of the International Academy of Ceramics, Australian Ceramic Stories provided a glimpse into the variety of innovative storytelling methods employed by Australian ceramic artists.

Image: Mel Robson, Fight and Flight (detail), 2007, slipcast porcelain, 11 x 7cm. Courtesy the artist and Jan Manton Art, Brisbane.

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