The Ceramic Arts Association of Western Australia has announced that Ian Dowling is this year's recipient of the
Kusnik Award for ceramics. Ian's porcelain sculptural forms
Embedment 1 and 2 won the annual award with a cash prize of $1500 at the association's recent selective exhibition at Heathcote Art Gallery in the City of Melville.
The Kusnik award is given to an artist who has an intimate understanding of the medium in which he or she is working.
Ian Dowling said his winning work was part of a series of pieces based on contemplating connections between geology, as history of the earth, and archaeology, as history of life, particularly human activity. "In a way these pieces are imagined enlarged shards containing records of the rock forms and the existence of life
forms, ” he said. "The evidence of life forms may be fossils or they may be embedded ceramic pieces trapped in the sediment.”
He said the embedded fragments/fossils and the rock surfaces imbued a unique origin of place. "The rock surfaces are imprinted from latex copies of actual rocks. The carved surfaces and the rhythmic patterned embedments are derived from my style over the last ten years. The staining of the surface of the carved porcelain is achieved by spraying each mineral from a different direction: iron one way then copper/strontium from the other. On the ridged carving this means the surface colour slightly changes depending on the direction it is seen, ” said Dowling.
View the exhibition at Heathcote Museum and Gallery, Duncraig Rd, Applecross until 14 August 2011.
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