28 May – 14 June 2020

about the exhibition

PORCELAIN brings together the work of six highly respected ceramicists: Prue Venables, Keiko Matsui, Kevin White, Neville French, Shannon Garson and Alice Couttoupes. The exhibition showcases the complexity, beauty and strength of this material.

Neville French draws inspiration from the landscape to develop porcelain forms which feature subtly coloured matt glazes of an unusual surface quality and luminosity. The shapes and soft tones of ‘Mungo light 1’ echo “the silent spaces and ephemeral effects of light, weather and time” at Lake Mungo in the dry lakes region of southern NSW. His forms are wheel thrown and altered with subtle shifts of coloured glazes built up over multiple thin layers. Through this process he is able to provoke a feeling of “gentle luminosity and illusory space to stimulate the imagination.” As Neville describes: “My intention is to distil an essence of place through deeply internalized associations with this unique environment and evoke notions of quietude and transcendence through the expressive use of glaze and its relationship to form, tactility, space and light.”

Neville French graduated with a Master of Arts degree from RMIT University, Melbourne in 2000, and has been teacher and coordinator of Ceramics at the Arts Academy, University of Ballarat, Victoria since 1982. He has held solo exhibitions in Melbourne and New York and been part of more than twenty group exhibitions worldwide. His work is represented in various public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, Artbank and the City of Inagawa (Japan).