Australian Decorative Arts 1985–1988

Contemporary Australian potters are producing works which rely strongly on a number of artistic traditions. Since the revival of studio pottery in the early twentieth century, the predominant aesthetic which has influenced potters throughout the world has been the rich tradition of Asian ceramics. The work of Australian potters who have followed this tradition — for instance that of Milton Moon — reflects a strong response to the Australian landscape, and artists such as Col Levy and Gwyn Hanssen Pigott have used sensitively developed glazes with modified traditional ceramic forms.

From the mid-1970s, many Australian potters became interested in art movements in other media, and began to explore alternative means of expression. Consequently, ceramic works began to display a great diversity of styles and to express different ideas and a fascination with techniques. This interest in the artistic styles of other media, as well as other cultures, is evident in the works of all the potters in this exhibition. It is apparent in the move away from the potter's wheel to hand-building, as in the works of Stephen Benwell and David Potter. The powerful, irregular three-dimensional forms built by these artists also provide surfaces for expressive painted decoration.

Extreme psychological states are explored in Toni Warburton's confronting work Encounter, and the relics of human material culture are wryly observed by Roderick Bamford in his compositions. Thanacoupie eloquently tells a story from the Dreamtime by impressing animal images into the surface of her pot. The end of the life of the ill-fated Anne Boleyn has been painted on to tiles that form the surface of the vase in Bern Emmerichs's Trophy of a swordsman from Calais. Interesting surface textures are explored by Maxine Lindsey in her exquisitely finished blackware Snake pot and by Bruce Anderson in his Monumental form, with its brightly coloured surface. Lino Alvarez Carrasco's Desert family, which stems from a Mexican folk pottery tradition, reflects the interest in large works that has become a trend in much current ceramic production.

Studio glass has developed relatively recently in Australia, gaining popularity in the 1970s. Nevertheless, there has been immense enthusiasm for this medium, and works display a great variety of styles and techniques. In his work Uriarra — named after the region near Canberra — Klaus Moje has responded to Aboriginal culture and the Australian environment by interpreting elements of Aboriginal shields in mosaic glass.

Individual pieces of furniture created in the last four years exhibit very different approaches to design. The love of the bush and the Australian heritage of bush carpentry are the basis for Gay Hawkes's work, which combines a roughness of finish with a strongly disciplined design. An interest in the beauty of wood for its own sake, as well as a concern for the diminishing Tasmanian forests, is expressed in Kevin Perkins's Dining at Travellers Creek. Combining a fascination with natural morphology, contemporary design and Germanic myth, Helmut Lueckenhausen produces his highly of individual pieces of furniture. Design for mass production of furniture, which has been well established in Australia since the early 1950s, is represented at his most modern with D4 Design's Dog Eat Dog Chair X6.

The Australian environment, both natural and urban, as well as the great heritage of Aboriginal culture, form the major sources for modern textile design. Screenprinting is the popular technique for fabrics intended to be used for clothing and furnishing, while batik, particularly when adopted by Aboriginal groups, is popular for works intended to be used as wall hangings.

Batik was used by Pooaraar to create a particularly haunting image, Dreamtime temptress, and by Angkaliya, an artist at Ernabella Arts, to produce a beautiful and very subtle eight-metre length of silk organza. Screenprinting was employed by Thanacoupie to tell the story of Quinpagen, the silver mullet, and by Tiwi Designs to overprint two designs — a snake and a stone axe — on a cotton fabric. Urban environment and popular culture form themes for the fabrics of Merd International, and Jenny Kee at Flamingo Park shows her fascination with and love of Australian flora in Waratah and black boys.

As a new form of art that has emerged in the 1980s, art clothes combines two traditional areas of body decoration — costume and jewellery — to create some of the most interesting and challenging works of recent years. Jenny Bannister's own wedding ensemble, with its elegantly cut dress of silk-lined green patent snake skin, plays with Biblical images of Eve and the serpent and challenges accepted ideas of bridal clothing. Using elements of popular urban dress, Peter Tully celebrates Halley’s Comet in a spectacular studded leather cape and Kate Durham looks at punk and bikie fashion in her Tip Treasure: Tinny Charms and Trinkets Mostly Made from Milk Bottle Tops. Suggesting mysterious rites of passage, Paua shell, designed by Linda Jackson, displays multi-layered screenprinted and painted leather, and exploits the shimmering qualities of the paua shell in its abundant neckpiece and head-dress. The garments created by Vain Extremities question traditional styles and modes of fashion and dress.

The techniques used to produce jewellery and metal objects are often the same, and many artists work in both areas. The move away from precious metals towards less traditional materials has been a strong force in Australian jewellery design since the early 1980s. In his unusual necklace, Warwick Freeman, a New Zealander who exhibits in Australia, has combined the beautiful colours and textures of paua shell, mother-of-pearl and tortoise shell with plastic and cotton cord. Recycled junk from the 1950s has been used by Robyn Backen in her bakelite and stainless steel Cup brooch, which reappraises the qualities of commonplace materials. Sieglinde Karl investigates socio-political and environmental concerns and Catherine Truman nostalgically recalls the past in works made primarily of wood. An unlikely mixture of red rubber and patinated brass has produced a marvellous colour and texture combination in Lyn Tune's bangle and neckpiece, and Margaret West has extended the boundaries of jewellery design in her necklace Eight stones with steel, which integrates, with rigorous control, those contrasting elements. In her structured brooches, Carlier Makigawa uses severe, elegant steel cages to create spaces which are filled with brightly coloured papier mâché forms. Daniel Jenkins’s work looks back to the tradition of blacksmithing, and Susan Cohn’s pieces investigate the potential of anodized aluminium for multiple and even mass production.

The traditions of fine craftsmanship and design have been respected and built upon by the metalworkers represented here. Ragnar Hansen exploits the marvellous reflective qualities of silver, while Frank Bauer, in contrast, creates a new nonreflective silver surface, produced by sandblasting, for his remarkable teapot. Christopher Mullins patinates gilding metal to imitate the colours and textures of stone.

Anodized aluminium, because of its relatively low price and its ability to take colour, has become increasingly popular as an artistic medium. Robert Foster has made the most of its distinctive qualities in his slender jug, as has Johannes Kuhnen in his decorative tray enhanced with gold rivets.

Elements of humour are apparent in a number of works selected for the show. Mark Edgoose's salt and pepper shakers, displaying surfaces of several different metal finishes and protrusions of rubber, would not be out of place in a Mad Max movie. Nicholas Deeprose uses one of the most endearing Australian animals as inspiration for his witty Cola bear brooch.

The exhibition reveals not only the willingness and enthusiasm with which contemporary artists have exposed themselves to different artistic traditions and techniques, but also the means by which they have incorporated these influences into their art. In drawing upon such eclectic sources for their works, artists in this country have been inspired to produce a rich variety of outstanding decorative arts.

Christopher Menz
former Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia

Text sourced from: Menz, Christopher. Australian Decorative Arts, 1985-1988. Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1988.