Domestic Interiors

Participating artists include Christchurch-based ceramicist Cheryl Lucas, whose practice draws attention to the increasingly pervasive presence of disposable items in our consumerist society. Whereas once ceramic objects and vessels were prized for both their utilitarianism and form, with artisans tasked with decorating jugs and urns which are still being discovered on archaeological digs and subsequently sent straight to museums, we are now increasingly reliant upon plastic – bottles, wrap etc., all of which contributes to the enormous and unprecedented quantity of landfill we generate every day.

Lucas’s Redundant Jugs are hand-thrown and simply glazed before having their bottoms cut off thus rendering them useless as utilitarian objects. They’re also somewhat squished which challenges our notions of perfection. And yet, Lucas’s Jugs are designed to be wall mounted, and clustered on the wall they make an interesting, humorous and thought-provoking installation.

Domestic Interiors also includes the work of realist painter, Auckland-based Peter Miller who works in oils and graphite pencil. Though his subject matter is diverse, Miller’s painstakingly executed images of cups and saucers, wine glasses on the window sill, for example, are often cracked or chipped which point not only to the revelry of the night before, but in some cases to the fractures within family life and, overall, to the transience of life and to the ephemerality of our presence and purpose here, domestic or otherwise.

Ceramicist Carol Brent’s 'switch' series are a humorous veneration of the domestic or mundane. Each switch, plug or socket is deliberately constructed 'not quite right', through which Brent evokes a commentary on our domestic relationships and situation (both good and bad). Brent's ‘domestic bird’ series combine unexpected imagery of native birds with household objects. Brent celebrates the commonplace; objects we pass daily or birds in our back garden are elevated to elegant vignettes. Birds perch among pegs, plug sockets, light switches or swing playfully upon antique pearls.