Adelaide-based ceramicist Kirsten Coelho has a new solo show at UNSW Galleries called ‘The Return’ that explores the concept of a journey and how it changes us, inspired by Homer’s Odyssey and a recent trip she took to Greece and Italy to explore ancient ruins.
It all started with an audiobook of The Odyssey read by Ian McKellen that Coelho and her husband listened to on a road trip from Alice Springs to Adelaide. The idea of a journey and of how we can change and how home can change resonated with her, especially having moved home from the US to Australia as a five year old child. “[The Odyssey] ignited something in me about home and journeys, and how you change on a journey and what the idea of home is,” she says.
This led to an interest in Ancient Greece and Rome, and Coelho received funding via a Fellowship to visit sites in both countries before COVID stopped international travel for Australians. Exploring archeological buildings and cities inspired the ceramicist, who reinterpreted some of the archeological remnant forms in clay for this exhibition. “Every day was pure excitement, visiting the Acropolis, visiting Pompei and Herculaneum” she says. “I was transfixed by the idea of the ruin – these columns and how they resonated with the form of a domestic object. Some of the forms I’m making are the half object – the object in its ruined form.”
The largest work in the exhibition is ‘Ithaca’, previously shown at the Samstag Museum, which features 39 pieces in porcelain with a satin white glaze. In the story, Ithaca is the island home of our hero Odysseus and with this work, Coelho has created a series of ceramic shapes inspired by archeological ruins. “I wanted Ithaca to seem like a city from afar and as you get closer it shifts and changes,” she says.
A smaller work in 11 parts, ‘Passages’ is also about home and leaving home and about what kind of objects you take with you on a journey, says the artist. “It’s almost an incongruity of objects,” she explains. “Sometimes in a museum or at home you might have a plastic bowl next to a metal jug – you never know what objects will sit next to each other in a different place or a different time.” Meanwhile, ‘The Shore’ is another series of 11 objects that explore how things aren’t the same when you come back as when you left and ‘The Ship’ is a series of larger works that explore how objects degrade and rust.
The majority of Coelho’s ceramics pieces are in white porcelain with a white glaze so the focus here is on form, creating that sense of ancient ruined architecture through shapes inspired by columns, plinths and statutes. The exception to the rule comes with the occasional rim or patch of ‘rust’ created with iron oxide, here hinting again at Coelho’s fascination with decay and degradation.
A ceramicist with 30 plus years of experience, there is no doubt that Kirsten Coelho’s works are masterful. The exhibition is even better viewed in person where you can get a sense of the delicacy of these forms, of the way that light falls on and through the works and the shadows they cast. This, coupled with their purposeful groupings and the storytelling hinted at by the names of the works, evokes a sense of depth and wonder, and a fascination with how objects exist through deep time.
