Draper has worked as a teacher, lecturer and mentor for over 40 years, and was the Head of Ceramics at the National Art School, Sydney from 2016-2023.
In both 2018 and 2023 she was invited by Lefebvre & Fils Galerie in Paris to undertake a residency and create a new body of work for a solo exhibition at their gallery. The residencies were for three-months in the former music pavilion of Madame Elisabeth, sister of King Louis XVI, in Versailles.
In 2019 Lynda won the prestigious award, The Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award (SMFACA) with an installation comprising eight sculptures. This award celebrates and promotes Australian artists working in the ceramic medium.
In 2020-21 a work from the SMFACA was exhibited in Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
In 2023 Lynda was invited to be part of ‘The National 4: Australian Art Now’ at Campbelltown Arts Centre. Through this opportunity brought 13 of her works together, spanning the years 2017-2023, in an immersive installation.
Draper’s practice was featured in Phaidon’s significant 2017 book ‘Vitamin C – Clay and Ceramic in Contemporary Art’, a global survey of 100 of the most important clay and ceramic artists working today.
Draper has also received numerous national and international awards, including the 16th International Gold Coast Ceramic Award; Fisher’s Ghost Award (Ceramics); and 54th Acquisition Award MIC, Faenza, Italy.
Her ceramic works are included in significant national and international collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia; Art Gallery New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza, Italy; Renwick Alliance Gallery, Smithsonian Institute Washington, United States; Artbank, Australia; Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria, Australia; FA Grue collection, Italy; Collection of the Dutch Royal Family, Netherlands; The Myer Foundation, Australia; Campbelltown City Council Art Collection, Campbelltown, Australia; HOTA, Gold Coast, Australia; University of Wollongong, Australia; and the IAC Collection FLICAM Museum, Fuping, China.
Lynda is represented by Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney/Melbourne/Singapore https://www.sullivanstrumpf.com and Galerie Lefebvre & Fils, Paris, France http://lefebvreetfils.fr/artistes
Lynda Draper is a contemporary Australian artist who primarily works in the ceramic medium. Her practice explores the intersection between dreams and reality, shaped by fragmented images from her surrounding environment, recollected memories, and an interest in historical artifacts. Draper has a fascination with pareidolia, and the phenomena of universal mythologies linked to the spirit image. Her work aims to invite imagination and the contemplation of some kind of other realm.
Created by a combination of pinching and coiling hand building techniques, Draper’s ceramic sculptures evoke dreamlike, ethereal qualities with the visual fragility of paper or wax and yet are instilled with the resilience and permanence of fired clay. Throughout her practice Draper has continued to push the technical limits and conventions of the medium. Her practice speaks to the tactile visual fragility of clay and utilises the medium as a way of exploring the nexus between tradition and innovation. She has been labelled as ‘one of Australia’s finest and most revolutionary art practitioners working in the field of ceramics’ (Sonia Legge, 2020).