HYPERCLAY: Contemporary Ceramics

8 October 2011 - 8 January 2012

A provocative and engaging exhibition of work by Australian artists using clay in unexpected and surprising ways, HYPERCLAY: Contemporary Ceramics highlights the versatility of this time-honoured material and, in doing so, re-imagines its possibilities. 
HYPERCLAY profiles eight artists at various stages in their careers whose current practice is taking ceramics into bold new territories. Whether printing with clay, transforming rejected ceramic objects or playing at the intersection of the digital and the handmade, the artists in HYPERCLAY are forging new pathways in Australian ceramics.

HYPERCLAY features the work of Walter Auer, Roderick Bamford, Stephen Bird, Jacqueline Clayton, Andrea Hylands, Addison Marshall, Pip McManus and Paul Wood.

A collection of over 30 short videos have been produced to accompany the exhibition, ranging from artists interviews to curators, academics, collectors and gallerists, commenting on why they find a particular artist so exciting, through to ceramic students expressing what inspires them about the work in the show. These videos will be housed in an easily navigated, tablet-housed application, testing the waters of fully integrated digital content into a traditional exhibition space. The digital content is not supplementary – engagement with the digital is paramount to truly understand the works on show.

Image (above): Paul Wood, Guardians of a goddess (detail), 2011, re-fired ceramics and glass. Photo: Siri Hayes.

Image (below): Walter Auer, Big Black Bear, 2011, clay (terra sigillata). Photo: Richard Weinstein.