Ceramic, metal, human hair & mohair
Collection of works for the RMIT Graduate Showcase.
This work explores the dissonance between the internal and external. Beauty resides in the cracks between expectation and reality. This is the celebration of the abject. Redefining societal beauty and placing it the hands of the owner. A self portrait, a snap shot of womanhood and an intimate story of myself as defined by me. Handing the power back to myself to speak my truths into a mirror of false ideals. I am a visual cacophony creating harmony within.
Photographs by Janelle Low.
Ceramic & human hair.
Photographs by Janelle Low
Ceramic & human hair.
Photographs by Janelle Low.
Stoneware, tissue transfer, metal & human hair.
Part one in a series of self portraits exploring myself as muse. I am object turned objectifier. I seek to see myself and have you see me. I will gaze upon you while you gaze upon me and neither shall feel comfortable. Narrating my body while we both decide what beauty really means.
Ceramic & human hair.
Photographs by Janelle Low.
Stoneware & tissue transfer 2018
Part self portrait and part imaginary friend. She holds the secrets I’ll never tell. Keeper of the darkest hours
These pieces are ceramic stoneware with the addition of pink acrylic rod.
This series of works was developed for a site specific pop up exhibition.
Concerned with how femininity is contained both societally and bodily within domestication these works seek to challenge the viewer. What is “women’s work”? Balanced on a precipice of vulgarity and sterility, commonly identified objects are transformed via medium and placement into a narrative of captivity. Experimentation with traditionally domestic forms and unlikely materials creates a conversation between utility and metaphor. From a feminist paradigm this body of work deconstructs gender stereotypes by narrowing in on the misguided notion that ‘a woman’s place is in the home’.
Stoneware, tissue transfer, custom printed velvet, pearls, glass beads, bridal lace, diamanté and vintage child’s chair 2018.
An exploration of the debeautification of beauty. Creating abject uncomfortability. Applying a deconstruction of objectification. Flesh turned commodity - recommodified.
Stoneware
The girl child. What I learnt to be was a girl child.
Porcelain & custom decals
A five part series exploring fragments of grief. Giving corporeal form to the intersections of the grief narrative. Crafted from porcelain, this work seeks to understand the indescribable physiology of the various components involved in grieving. Bringing three dimensional life to a process that is often one that shapes us. Self portraits adorn these vessels in the form of decals. Each piece, a new chapter in the visceral book of the inner world. Below are all five parts, together, complete.
Stoneware paperclay 2018
An exploration in vanity, expectation and femininity. She is the pretty vessel that holds your compliments close.
Stoneware.
A character study of my late sister. A cut and paste of her indelible traits that linger, in great detail, within me. Diana Gabriel 1967 - 1996. Forever my muse.
Cast from stoneware.
And what will become of me when there is nowhere left to hide from my memories?
This piece chronicles the landscape of healing after loss. An exploration of the rise and fall of grief. The journey from submergence to the inevitable peace we find in our sorrow. Who we are now is not who we once were.
Porcelain
“If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive”.
Audre Lorde
Porcelain
“When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman”.
Betty Friedan
Porcelain
“No moon, sun, diamond, hands —
fingertip, dot, ray, gauze, sea.
pine green, pink glass, eye,
mine, eraser, mud, mother, I am coming”.
Frida Kahlo
Porcelain & Stoneware
I give these gifts, not as tokens of my affection, but as photographs of myself so that you can come to understand me.
Self Portraits.
Porcelain
Notes to myself at 3am.
“Rare is the day that I will roll over and expose my soft, fleshy underbelly. But for you, I have considered it”.