19 June - 8 July 2014
about the exhibition
Fiona Hiscock views the traditions of utilitarian ceramic vessels within a broader concept of functionalism, relating her forms to pieces that were used in daily domestic rituals of the past. Fiona handbuilds her vessels using the ‘coiling’ technique before transposing imagery of selected plants onto the vessels by applying layers of ceramic stain, similar to the way watercolours are created, building up layers of soft colour wash. In her most recent work, Fiona has departed from depicting introduced species and plants found in early colonial gardens and, instead,turned her attention to Australian native species. As with botanical illustrations, Fiona is interested in depicting the full life cycle of the plant; “These works include depiction of the birds and insect life I have observed in the Banksia forests, attempting to provide an idea of the plants overall habitat… I have become passionately interested in depicting the native environment. Using the vessel as a vehicle for painting and narrative allows my abiding interest in the natural world to flourish.”
Born in Melbourne in 1965, Fiona Hiscock completed her training at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in the early 1990s. She has been exhibiting consistently since 1991 and her work is represented in the Parliament House Art Collection, as well as the collections of the Jewish Museum of Australia, Queensland University of Technology, Deakin University, and regional galleries in Ballarat, the Gold Coast, Bathurst and Shepparton.
