"When Sassy told me about her idea for this exhibition, I felt like she was speaking my language. I have always felt the allure of the smaller-scale treasure. I find myself drawn in, much in the same way that I will edge closer to someone who is talking quietly. Keepsakes hoarded in childhood, studied and examined at length, are still recalled with utmost vividity – a tiny lead mouse painted gold (the paint scratched where I would tap it against my teeth!); a small smooth panther of slightly translucent black plastic, with twinkling red diamante eyes; a spring-loaded cloisonne notebook complete with miniature pencil, that would fit in my small palm. The diminutive size of the objects appealed to my child-scale, and their prosaic materiality was irrelevant: to me this was a precious trove. I spent countless hours poring over my mum’s copy of Africa Adorned, where photos of craftsmen’s fingers picking away at tiny crumbling moulds to reveal fine bronze fish and crocodiles was, for me, akin to magic. I relished special visits to David Wang’s vast emporium in Chinatown where I would make a beeline for a collection of miniature turquoise porcelain horses, bucking or prancing in seemingly endless variations, and from time to time, fragments of similar forms would emerge from the dirt in our Ballarat backyard, along with countless bottles and stoppers and other sherds of goldfields history.
This foundation, this fascination in close examination of small treasures, certainly helped lead me towards my profession (I work as a conservator of art and artefacts). Recently I was able to assist with the installation of the Pharaoh exhibition that is currently on display at the NGV. Working up close with hundreds of small objects - amulets, jewellery, funerary ware – was a ceramicist's delight, and gave me an opportunity to understand better how such things were made. I was particularly taken with the artefacts made of glazed composition (aka faience, or Egyptian paste). I had tried using this material in the past but had always found it difficult to manipulate – it has a soft texture that collapses and oozes under its own weight – so I was in awe of the fineness of the ancient work. It inspired me to try again, and while the ancient technique still eludes me, I am developing a better understanding of the way this material behaves. The pieces assembled here are explorations in material challenges, in mould-making and casting, in forming composites of disparate parts to create a unified whole. It is also a nod to the long history of representations of animals in ceremonial art as part of a codified system of information, but which nonetheless simultaneously transmit a sense of individual character or personality, both of the creature represented, and of the maker.
A yardstick that I often apply to my ceramic work is, “if I dug this out of the ground, would I treasure it?” I continue to try to make art that sparks a hint of recognition in the viewer with a moment in the past – either their own, or back further – and perhaps draws them in for closer contemplation."