Clay + String
Exhibition Dates: February 26th - March 8th
Opening Drinks: Saturday March 1st 2pm
Online Sales Launch: February 23rd 7pm
Business Hours: Wednesday - Friday 10am - 4pm, Saturday 10am - 2pm.
Exhibiting Artists: Pippita Bennett, Lea Durie, Christina McLean and Karlie Simring
Four artists, each rooted in the mediums of ceramics and textiles, unite in an exploration of materiality. This exhibition invites the audience on a sensory journey of earth and fiber. Through their distinct yet interconnected practices, the artists celebrate the tactile essence of these ancient materials, revealing stories of tradition, innovation, and the profound relationship between maker and medium.
Pippita Bennett
Pippita Bennett lives in Katoomba immersed in Dharug and Gundungurra land. The Blue Mountains and the places she visits inspire her practice. She captures her experience of place through stitched landscapes.
Pippita collects plants for dye pots to create colour from the landscape on her threads and fabrics. She is happiest when stitching by a fire with a cup of tea nearby. Beginning with simple lines of stitch, she lets her needle lead the way as she observes and immerses herself in the environment. Pippita notices and stitches elements in the landscape: trees, rocks, animal prints, and flowers.
Pippita studied art at the University of Sydney’s Tin Sheds as part of her Architecture degree. She is currently studying a Masters of Art Therapy. Pippita has had two solo exhibitions at Platform Gallery in Katoomba and Lyttleton Stores in Lawson. She has exhibited in group shows at Floral Ink, Wentworth Falls and The Corner Store Gallery in Orange.
Lea Durie
Lea Durie’s artistic practice is concerned with the places humans inhabit and brings attention to the small ways we engage with our surroundings. She is interested in how we see ourselves as part of a broader web of connection, beyond the human and how we might find a way through the tangle of extreme weather and changing climate.
Working primarily in clay Lea’s work goes underground into the material geology of a place, in a conversation of making. The slow processes and sensory exploration of the messy materiality of foraged local clays and rock creates ways to explore these places, little by little. This material has its own force, with much to say.
‘Conversations’ starts with a curiosity of what is revealed when things are brought to the surface. It combines foraged local clays as body and slip and rock pigments from the places of human habitation she has been exploring in NSW, combined with commercial clays and glazes.
Christina McLean
Christina Mclean is a multi-disciplinary artist based on the Central Coast of NSW, Australia, living on Darkinjung land.
For over three decades Christina’s practice has focused on materials and the marks that are placed upon them, most notably in the medium of clay. Her work explores her connection to place and an endless love of the natural world. Christina has a BA Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts 1991. After completing her degree, she co-founded Chowk Ceramics and for ten years produced unique ceramic tableware collections, sculptural pieces and wall work. After further postgraduate studies in Design at UTS, Christina turned her mark making to textiles and launched her own textile print studio in 2009. Collaborating with leading fashion designers, her textile designs graced many catwalks and formed an integral part of the designers collections.
In 2014 Christina came back to clay with her brand Trade the Mark. Working with stoneware and earthenware clays, she predominantly throws vessels on the wheel and works with slabs to create ceramic wall pieces. Christina uses clay as her canvas, creating bold, one-off ceramic works that are intricately etched with sgraffito decoration. Each vividly coloured vessel celebrates her devotion to a hand-crafted practice.
Karlie Simring
Karlie Simring is an artist and designer based in Inner Sydney on Gadigal Land. Holding a Bachelor of Fashion and Textile Design, Karlie has enjoyed a creative career as a Senior and Head designer in the fashion industry for more than 25 years. Her early education also included a year at the National Art School. More recently, Karlie has explored various creative mediums, including watercolour, ceramics, basketry & weaving. She has now circled back to her love of cloth - exploring contemporary textiles, focusing on surface embroidery and collage. Art and design are Karlie’s guiding passions, with the world of textiles continually inspiring her process. Drawing from her experience in fashion, she infuses her work with a considered sense of colour, form and detail. Karlie’s process is intuitive, as she explores and observes her surroundings. Her art is an interplay of line, texture and tone, creating stories with a deep appreciation for materiality and tactility. Mark making with thread, brings the viewer into her inner world.
Karlie had a solo exhibition in 2024 at The Corner Store Gallery in Orange and has exhibited at Saint Cloch Gallery and Campbelltown Arts Centre.