Ceramics Showcase: Sempre

Prue Venables is one of Australia’s most accomplished ceramicists, with a demonstrated mastery of porcelain. Practising since 1977, her work has evolved from traditional functional objects to groups of abstract sculptural entities that inventively play with form and space.

Discussing her practice, Venables says:

"Science and music led me to ceramics. I’m fascinated by the beauty of functional objects at the core of our lives. I love feeling clay in my hands. Decades of experimentation with high-temperature porcelain (and now metal) across studio and industrial domains inform my practice as I search for elegance and harmony. Through throwing, I create forms to be altered and reconstructed, procedures in this material that are challenging and risky, requiring great skill and precision, yet with results that appear simple and deny the inherent complexity of their origin. The grouping of objects, always a central premise of my work, facilitates allusions to musical and narrative themes."