Gillian Hodes, ceramic artist
Image: David Hodes

Artist Statement​

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My work is autobiographical; I express my inner life and how I respond to what is going on around me with porcelain, a material that shifts between translucency and opacity and when lit from within it emanates an inner radiance.

Working primarily through hand-building, I shape each piece slowly and intuitively, sculpting with light and shadow as much as with form.

Living in coastal Sydney shapes both my palette and process, from the ochres and black of the eroded volcanic outcrops and weathered sandstone cliffs, to the gentle blues of ocean and sky:  traces of place embedded in clay, and always the light. 

By integrating pigment directly into the clay body, colour moves through the walls rather than resting on the surface; I feel like I am drawing within rather than applying without. This process reflects an ongoing inquiry in my practice: a search to reveal what lies beneath appearances, and to give material presence to the unseen layers we carry within.

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