Sweet O’Rourke Trust

NCC’S INAUGURAL CERAMIC AWARD 2024

Thank you to all entrants and a big congratulations to our prize winners.

First Prize of $1500 to Antoinette OBrien for “Sea Spume and Substrate” (see opposite)

Runner Up Prize of $500 to Louise Fulton for “Pod”

And $1000 worth of clay kindly donated by Fired Up KIlns to Lorraine Dean for ‘Hush”

Click here for a great video of the entire exhibition by Richard Tabaka.

We have received the following feedback from one of our judges:

Vicki Grima:

”Congratulations to North Coast Ceramics (NCC) on the creation of their inaugural award exhibition, “Ceramics in a Fragile World”. Thank you so much for inviting me along to be part of the excitement.

I was interested to see that NCC’s vision was to “connect people with pots”, and I can see that that is exactly what is happening here tonight. In this large audience, we have an engaged group of potters and ceramicists, along with family, friends and those who with genuine interest in the medium.

A few years back now, The Australian Ceramics Association (of which I was EO) honed its vision to make sure that “every day, in every hand and on every table, we celebrate handmade Australian ceramics”. I see that these two visions are overlapping and relevant to why we are here tonight.

Many, or all of us, use handmade ceramics everyday whether for our favourite cup of tea, a special bowl for breakfast, gorgeous plates on our table or homegrown flowers in a vase we have made. It is up to us to share this passion and communicate it with as broad an audience as possible.

I have also been thinking about the theme of “Ceramics in a Fragile World”. I feel like I want to change the words around to “A World of Fragile Ceramics” in that we often talk about the fragility of ceramics. While this may be the reality in some instances, it remains a fact that many artefacts from past millennia are ceramic. Ceramics persist and tell our stories to others about how we live and what we value. And in that same way, the ceramics we see here tonight tell our new stories, to each other now, and into the future. They will remain long after we are gone.

On a whole, I felt the work exhibited was strong and diverse, and sculptural rather than functional. The works were unique, covering many different processes of making and firing.

The work of the winner of the Emerging Prize by Lorraine Dean, “Hush II” was a beautifully fragile black porcelain vessel on a narrow base. The form and surface were created by delicate folds resembling fine fabric dipped in slip, airily thin and pierced in places.

Louise Fulton won the runner-up prize with her work “Pod”. The exquisite mud pods created by potter wasps (to store food for their larvae) were used by Louise to create her wall sculpture. The tall narrow cone form made from terracotta clay was covered with the tiny fragile mud pods and fired, thereby giving us a lasting reminder of these fragile nests common to her studio and the north coast region.

And the winner, Antoinette O’Brien, reminded us of the wound to the landscape and the human souls created by the 2022 Lismore floods with her work “Sea Spume and Substrate”. This powerful piece spoke also of the trauma to the people who experienced these events and the landscapes that were ruined. She did this so cleverly with her asymmetrical, slightly unbalanced form, and the uncertain glazed surface on which water and earth combined, flowing away. The spindly handles also spoke of the tenuous grasp we have on this world of changing climates.

Other works of note were “Sensor” by Lou Goggin with feathery and delicately balanced, small forms; Claudia Gyr’s “Fragments of Knowing” with pieces stitched together, and scrawled lettering hinting at hidden stories; and Ky Curran’s “Architectural Jewellery”, with its ceramic and silver links created as both adornment for the body and for the built environment.

All in all, it was a strong show with lots of room to grow, both in depth and breadth in the coming years – two possibilities being displaying more works and including functional ceramics.

I’d like to say a final congratulations to all artists chosen and a big thank you for asking me along”.