The Portage Ceramic Awards 2009

If you haven’t already looked in at this year’s top ceramic awards exhibition, you’ve still got a few weeks left. This is a show you really won’t want to miss.

American judge, Professor of Ceramics at the University of Colorado, Scott Chamberlin has used his time in the country, as a residency artist at UNITEC, to familiarise himself with the ceramic scene and to address issues he felt needed attention.

He writes: “The underlying principle was to choose fewer artists with the objective of the exhibition revealing a clearer excellence of studio practice in New Zealand. It was my intention to choose artwork that would be demonstrative of the material richness and point to the wealth of historical antecedents (from antiquity as well as more recent), that ceramic art can embody. Additionally, it was my intention to choose work that would fit comfortably into any other context where one would engage with the larger and more complex world of contemporary art.”

The winners are:
Premier Awards – jointly won by:
Madeleine Child & Philip Jarvis for their work, Doodads & Doodahs and Widespread Occurrence of Possible Symbioses and
Jim Cooper for, Drug Jars and Vendor

Merit Awards went to:
Phillipa Durkin – Felling the Tree to obtain the Fruit
Emily Siddell – Flock
Kristy Palleson – Banks

The John Green Waitakere Artist Award went jointly to:
Sang Sool Shim & Keum Sun Lee – Life is a Journey and
John Parker – West Auckland Still Life for Keith and Ernie

A lavish catalogue featuring photographs and artists statements for all of the finalists, as well as essays by Scott Chamberlin and David Craig, is available in the gallery.

Image: Doodads & Doodahs and Widespread Occurrence of Possible Symbioses by Madeleine Child and Philip Jarvis.

Event listed by LopdellHouseGallery

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