When Artisan – Queensland’s peak organisation for craft and design – pivoted last December to move beyond a bricks and mortar model, the future of UNLEASHED, its flagship exhibition for emerging makers, was in question.
The answer came in the way of partnership with HOTA Home of the Arts on the Gold Coast – a gallery with a long history of ceramics, but one that has faded with time. The pairing has raised the bar on this biennial event for both organisations – and emerging artists are the winners.
UNLEASHED+ review – quick links
Springboarding on history to elevate a next generation
Presented in the upper galleries of HOTA, usually reserved for collection exhibitions, UNLEASHED+ makes an impact.
It is clout that a makes sense. For over three decades, the Gold Coast City Gallery – which rebranded as HOTA with its new home in 2021 – presented the Gold Coast International Ceramic Art Award. One of Australia’s most influential acquisitive ceramic prizes, it was conceived to build a dedicated studio ceramic collection.
The award was retired in 2016, but through UNLEASHED+, that legacy – in part – is allowed a renewed connection with the next generation of makers and audiences.
The exhibition’s timing also poses an interesting proposition for small to medium-scaled institutions. It’s being shown alongside major touring exhibitions from the White Rabbit Collection in Sydney and the National Indigenous Art Triennial from the National Gallery in Canberra. In tandem, these three exhibitions speak to value of partnerships to bolster visibility – and simply just economic smarts.
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Bringing together practitioners working across disciplines
Where this presentation was really successful was in the cue it took from the ceramic works of exhibiting artist Céline Caron, using shades of soft purple to differentiate works by the current crop of 12 artists in the Unleashed initiative and the five alumni of Artisan’s inaugural artists-in-residence program, who were presented alongside them. It meant the exhibition wasn’t reliant on weighty didactics to make that distinction.
HOTA’s curator tells me she was aiming for a show that felt modern, with clean lines and an open feel to elevate perceptions of craft, and I think that was achieved. This is an elegant show, and it feels dynamic and fresh.
Among the standout works were the aforementioned ceramic forms of Céline Caron, and a suite of porcelain pieces by Julia Bramich, both drawing in the viewer with their surface detail.
Nearby, Petalia Humphreys shifts the tone. Her wall-mounted, non-objective, 3D painted forms hone the eye to look at their shadows and surfaces. What is key here is that they are impeccably painted by hand. We see a similar spatial and visual experimentation in the unglazed works of Tom Summers.
For both Humphreys and Summers, colour is a fundamental part of their work, and it is interesting for a viewer to explore those like principals across different mediums in the space.
Pushing definitions
That sense of hand and experimentation is key also in the expansive installation by Rachel North, pairing glazed and unglazed stoneware and beeswax vessels. Here landscape and memory are almost malleable in her hands, triggering connections for audiences.
Jewellery is always so difficult to present and to push beyond mainstream perceptions. Gabi Harris, with her black cockatoo-inspired necklaces, and Rhiannon Sothern, with her porcelain pieces influenced by coral bleaching, are both conceptually strong and exquisitely executed.
A maker that bridges craft and design – and getting lots of attention – is Jacqueline Kaytar. Here she presents a light, mirror and 3D formed work, sliding between materials and surfaces. Familiar and yet alluring and different, they offer further exciting proof of how the maker community is pushing definitions today.
Other works include a stunning timber bench by Ben Adams, exquisitely crafted wood boxes by William MacLean, and the playful ceramics of Michelle Le Plastrier.
The gallery space is not permanently invigilated which offered its own challenge when it came to planning the UNLEASHED+ exhibition. HOTA’s audience is broad and often comprises first-time tourist visitors. Many of the works here needed to be presented in museum cases, and objects were placed on shelves slightly higher than usual.
While it might have meant that punters were unable to see the gorgeous gold-leaf insides of Rick Hayward’s cabinet, get their hands on Norton Fredericks bronze as intended, or feel the precarity of Jude Muduioa’s unguarded stacked ceramics, it really did not compromise the exhibition – we are kind of used to such exhibition furniture and precious made objects.
