ABOUT THE WORK.
Alex’s sculptural ceramic work explores the tension between the built and organic environment; the re-emergence of the natural world over human construction; as well as providing a more personal outlet to deal with loss, death and grief and the rebirth following loss. Alex is interested in how the collision between humanity, technology and nature plays out in modern and contemporary dystopian literature and film, foreshadowing realities driven by political cowardice, corruption and inaction. The works of Bosch and Brueghel inform the motifs of decay and carnage in her work, which conversely reference the decorative porcelain ware created in the 18th and 19th centuries for middle class aspirational England..
Her current body of work is rendered largely in fine porcelain, evoking the fragility yet resilience of the natural environment. Works are both visually abundant, dystopian worlds collide with industrial ephemera and more delicately abstract, using organic motifs of kelp forms and Australian native flora conjuring the idea of the environment in flux. Intricate detail is made coherent through simple glazes and slips in a largely monochromatic palette. The work pushes the boundaries of material integrity, working the clay body finer and thinner to enable its activation by light, creating a luminous ethereal quality suggesting the ephemeral and the liminal – the space between light and dark; existence and disappearance.
This sense of disappearance is further evoked by Alex’s death masks – wall pieces created in black porcelain and glazed to an oil-slick iridescence. These haunting relics question ideas of death or collapse as a precursor to rebirth.
ABOUT THE ARTIST.
Alex is a ceramic artist living and working in Sydney on Gadigal land. She recently completed a BFA at the National Art School, following a long-held interest in the fine arts as both a viewer and maker. Living for several years in both London and Paris gave Alex the opportunity to be steeped in centuries of artistic practice, a sense of awe and beauty that she now brings to her celebration of the Australian environment. Alex’s maximalist visual language is inspired by European Baroque and the medieval hellscapes of Bosch and Brueghel, abundantly accessible during her time in Europe.
Decades in legal practice, working pro bono on behalf of refugees, environmental groups, homeless charities and mental health services have made Alex consider the fragility of existence and civilisation, an overriding theme in her practice.
Working with vulnerable people living on the fringe of society, be it through mental health issues, lack of legal status or lack of stable housing revealed a liminal state where belonging is questioned and certainties are lost. A recent serious illness has further caused Alex to consider the random, chaotic and precariousness of life. Notions of uncertainty, flux and loss are central to her work.
Alex draws influence also from a childhood in the milling cities of Norther England, where decorative porcelain was collected as a luxury display item from manufacturers such as Coalport and Spode. Her early dislike for the knickknackery of her mother and grandmothers has turned to a fascination with the idea and purpose of decoration in the female space.
Alex reads extensively, fiction with a dystopian bent and scientific and philosophical material that examines our responsibilities to our planet and technological innovation that may yet save us.