The painting, ‘Language of the River’, acrylic on linen, 168 x 214 cm, 2022, has been selected for the 60th Annual Fishers Ghost Art Award, at the Campbelltown Arts Centre.
The ceramic work, ‘The River’s Ancient Song’, stoneware ceramic with glaze, 43 x 23 x 19 cm, has been granted an Award for Excellence in the Clunes Ceramic Award 2022 and the work has been purchased by the Art Gallery of Ballarat for their ceramic collection. The Prize is held from the 1st October to the 23rd of October 2022 at the Castlemain Art Museum, Victoria.
My work, ‘Repair and Mending Time’ , 150 cm x 150 cm, fabric, hand stitiching, sequins and beads, has been selected for the 2022 Meroogal Women’s Art Prize. The works are to be exhibited within the historic home, Meroogal, NSW, one of the many historic properties protected by the Sydney Living Museums. It is a wonderful setting creating an interplay between contemporary art and history. All the works respond to the historical context of the site.
‘River Diety’ has been selected for the Northern Beaches Environmental Design & Art Award, exhibited at the Manly Art Gallery & Museum, 5th to the 28th of August, 2022. My work references archaic forms suggesting ancient pagan sources of reverence and worship of forces beyond our control. The hand build ceramic work has undergone numerous firings revealing calligraphic marks acting as a tecxt or an implied language to be understood or deciphered.
The ceramic work, ‘River Language and Connections’ has been slected for the North Queensland Ceramic Award, held at the Perc Tucker Regional Art Gallery, Townsville, 22 July to the 25th of September 2022.
Futher developing my installation ‘Theatre of ther Grotto’ from the Mosman Regional Art Gallery, 2021, selected for the North Sydney Art Prize 2022, I extended the work in scale and conceptually, exhibited at the entrance to the Chambers at the Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability. Titled, ‘Shrine to Aqueous Depths‘ the work suggestes a river cave, acting as a shrine to water. A large fabric hanging, 380 cm in height and 460 cm in length is suspended alongside fabric river effigies which soften the stone interior creating an intimate womb like space. There is an interplay between the artificial rock contructions, bowls containing water, projected videos with sound of water scapes, all create a subterranean wonderland.
Selected for the Sawmillers Sculpture Prize 2022 with my work, ‘Markers and Relics of a Martime History’ the work responds to the sites maritime history echoing existing remnants of industrial heritage. Acting as a shrine, six concrete sculptures embedded with ceramic shards and shells herald statuary of ancient water deities and support bowls contaning water.
Selected for the National Still Life Award, my installation, ‘Still Waters’ is a grouping of sculptural objects that evokes a constructed river, where birds, bowls containing water, symbolic effigies of oyster shells and a boat are embedded with ceramic shards and shells. Representing historical emblems of the river, they encapulate a timeless past. Presented as iconic forms, the works speaks of the ecological significance of the river and the need to preserve its precious resources. This is a river where life is held still. Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, 14th August – 23rd of October, 2021
The annual group landscape prize at Art House Gallery, this year, ‘Out of the Blue’ featured my work ‘Land and Water’, 153 x 168 cm and the ceramic work, ‘Ancient Land and its River’, 39.5 x 34 x 24 cm, 2022.
‘Calligraphic Marks of a River Landscape’ was awarded Honourable Mention‘ in the Paddington Art Prize, 2021. Calligraphic marks act as a script or denote a musical score which floats over the landscape. It is an inferred language acknowledging our need to decifer and understand the river in ortder to preserve its precious resources.
Recent paintings were exhibited at the group Landscape exhibition, ‘Coming Home‘ at Art House Gallery, 1 – 17th of July 2021. These paintings, ‘Abstracted Landscape 2’, 152 x 168 cm and ‘The ancient river’, 57 x 70 cm, acrylic on linen, were inspired by the Inland River and its ancient markings.
Selected for the ‘I AM HERE‘ group exhibition at Art House Gallery, curated by Katherine Hattam, the exhibition was in response to the growing movement towards equal respect, opportunity and recognition of women artists. 6 – 21 st of March 2021. I exhibited my cermics with my paintings envisaged as a constructed setting where handbuilt ceramics act as actors on a stage.
The grouping of sculptural figures, ‘Mrs Jessie Thorburn and her four daughters’ was selected for the 2020 Meroogal Women’s Art Prize, exhibited within the Sydney Living Museums property, Meroogal House, Nowra, NSW. The work responded to the history of this site, where four generations of women lived. Revealing unearthed remnants reconstructing history, this is a contemorary hybrid of a nineteenth century curio where shells, ceramic shards and artifical flowers speak of a lived domestic life.
Two of my works were hung in the Summer Salon exhibition, Art House Gallery, ‘River Night Music’, 74 x 64 cm and ‘Evening Sonnet’, 101 x 110 cm, both acrylic on linen, 14 -30 Januaray 2021.
Theatre of the Grotto, an experimental installation consisting of five videos with sound scapes and narrated texts; cement and ceramic sculptures, fabric hangings and soft sculptures is currently showing at the ‘The Cube’, Mosman Art Gallery, from the 10th of April to the 13th oif June, 2021. A room brochure is available with an essay of the work by arts writer Victoria Hynes. I will be holding children workshops creating fabric and assembled river creatures. On the 22nd Of May I will be giving a talk on the inspirations for this exhibition and a short history outlying the significance of the Grotto.
River language II with ceramics
My exhibition ‘River Language‘ is from the 5 – 23 May 2020 at Arthouse Gallery, Sydney. In this time of the Covid 19 virus and current limitations the exhibition is still able to be viewed by appointment, and a video walkthrough and descriptions of my work and processes are available on Vimeo.
I have contributed editorial to the upcoming Art Almanac magazine which is dedicating its next edition to the affects of the Covid 19 virus on the arts community, current exhibiting artists and commercial galleries, in this time of restrictions and closures.
The painting ‘The River is our Mother’, 169 x 214cm, acrylic on linen, 2019, and the ceramic sculpture, ‘Lagoon’, 49 x 38 x 21 cm, stoneware ceramic with glaze, 2019, are now part of the permanent collection of the Manning Regional Art Gallery, NSW.
Exhibiting at the Manning Regional Gallery, Taree, NSW, ‘The Lyrical River‘ 25 July – 1 September 2019, the work is a culmination of field research and exploratory investigation with a range of materials back in my studio, expanding and invigorating new approaches to my art practice, consisting of paintings, ceramics, sculpture, video and fabric based installations.
Undertaking a residency at La Macina di San Cresci, Tuscany, Italy, May 2018, experimental works emerged inspired by the surrounding countryside, museums and Etruscan artefacts, resulting in an installation installed in the adjoining chapel. Titled, ‘Pieve at San Cresci of Domesticity, The Archeological Museum of Domesticity and the Everyday’, the work explored the tensions between creating art and being a mother of small children
Featured in the Artist Profile magazine, in the Process section, Issue 41, 2017, p 130 – 132, I discuss my current work and art practice, excerpts from my article are:
” My work has moved away from any specific landscape to become my own inner recollections, a reduced and abstracted essence of the land. The river, the trees, the rocks and broad spatial vistas become a series of signs or totems”
“Embedded in my works are memories and recollections of my youth, swimming in the Wollombi Brook, with its shallow, amber gumleaf-stained edges moving to the cool mysterious deep green umber depths. for me the river is a place of connection; a journey undertaken and a vehicle back to a slower pace and sense of place.”
“abstracted gestural calligraphic marks float above an expansive space of bleached and stained canvas. Colours transfuse from pinks to gold to blues, depending on the heat of the day. The marks made on the land are like a text or a series of musical notes, an implied language to be understood or deciphered. The works acknowledge our need to understand the land in order to work with and preserve ts fragile ecosystems.”
My work ‘Totems of the land’ has been selected for the exhibition, ‘Land’, at Manly Art Gallery & Museum, 3 November – 3 December 2017. Curated by Katherine Roberts, senior curator at the Manly Art Gallery & Museum, the exhibition explores the notion of land. A noun, a verb, a place, an idea, a possibly, a presence, a contested space, Landscape, headland, wasteland, landfill, landmine.
Selected for the Australian Ceramic Association’s group exhibition, curated by Susan Ostling, ‘The Course of Objects: the fine lines of inquiry’ at the Manly Art Gallery & Museum, 2 May – 8 June 2014, my work explored the interplay and tension between the gestural painterly mark and the three dimensional form.
‘The Course of Objects: the fine lines of inquiry’ is an exhibition without a specific theme, Rather, the intention is to provide a way to map, gather, assemble and reflect on current ceramic practices. It is intended too, to take the pulse on what is being made now, and to ask about current ideas or issues of influence. Importantly, its intention is to try to unravel the triggers that inspire practice, and lead to focused and rigorous lines of inquiry”
Kate Dorrough 