Home Altar, GallerySmith, Melbourne

Home Altered, Shepparton Art Museum, SAM

The Home Altar series has grown from an interest in the metaphysical aspects of the domestic souvenir. These works evolved in reply to the evocative nature of a group of souvenirs collected from my childhood home prior to its sale and demolition. This Australian suburban house built during the 1950’s and its artifacts reemerged into my life as extraordinary, familiar yet strange; generating a peculiar conflation of past and present, memory and emotion, self and other; triggering an overwhelming nostalgia that crept into unease. On reflection this work arose from an unconscious reaction to the insecurity in the present, to a sense of alienation, to the passing of time and to an uncanny sense of death.

While the works are based around evocative found objects, I have chosen the clay medium as my primary source of communication to depart from the prescriptive nature of these domestic souvenirs and to convey a sense of mystery. The aim was to transform the objects from the house into ghostlike, spirit images - interpretations of what was seemingly familiar, yet strangely uncanny. I have employed traditional ceramic technologies incorporating a variety of techniques including hand modeling using coiling and pinching techniques; press-molding clay forms from plaster cast and multiple glaze firings using various glazes to achieve desired surfaces.

Works from this series have been acquired by the: National Gallery of Australia ACT, the Gregg collection and Wollongong University.