AFTERMATH – Art Gallery NSW

Aftermath, 2013, ceramic installation, stoneware, paperclay and woodfired unprocessed clay and shale, dimensions variable from Fantasticology Tokyo: Faults, Flesh and Flowers a 6 screen video installation by Alex Kershaw, Art Gallery of NSW Contemporary Projects.

‘The beginning of this work is an aftermath. Or at least, this is its grounding: unfixed and unsettled.

For Fantasticology Tokyo: Faults, Flesh and Flowers, Kershaw collaborated with four senseis or masters of Ikebana – an aesthetic practice of arranging flowers and other elements from nature together – to film six different videos which bring the distinct actions of each sensei together in another space and time…..

The anchor point of the gallery installation is a ceramic object made by Barbara Campbell-Allen, a senior Australian ceramic and installation artist. It is a vase the size of a small child and reflects the three dimensional form some of the actions of ceramic potters in Kershaw’s videos, where vases are deliberately crushed or squashed out of shape to form part of the sensei’s ikebana. Clay modelling is one of the most direct (and possibly earliest) forms of human intervention into the substance of the earth for use or ornament. The work of Campbell-Allen gives these ideas a human proportion.’

From the catalogue essay ‘Unfixed as The Ground Beneath Our Feet’ by Bec Dean

Barbara Campbell-Allen - An AustralianLandscape Narrative

This video was developed for The Australian Ceramic Association  film festival that was part of the Australian Ceramic Triennial 'Stepping Up' , that was held in Canberra July 2015.