The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 50 no 1 April 2011

Juz Kitson, What did you expect? 2010, mixed media, h.1Scm, w.19cm, d.25cm; photo: Jennifer leahy, silversalt
small allows a consideration of the vast, and therefore faith in God's will and the possibility of spiritual
transformation . Kitson explains it in a more intimate way: "Luring the viewer into the sublime, by
pushing us out of an outer physical nature and instead forcing us to look inside ourselves and our inner
nature. I take interest in slightly repulsing the viewer. They are unsettled. This uneasiness turns into
wonder."
This is indeed the experience of Kitson's work. Beauty and disgust are flip sides of the same coin.
Fear and revelation, too, are connected. Kitson's cow udders, for instance, fill the viewer with aversion.
Th is is partly because of the intimacy of a teat, meant for the tender feeding of an innocent. It is also
because the teats are detached from the cow and are hanging from an austere white gallery wall. The
six udders were made by pouring plaster into condoms and dipping those forms into fleshy pink wax.
But then Kitson attaches sprouting hair from glass droplets. Both hideous and unnatural. both sensitive
and sensual, the work is called The calves are being weaned from their mothers and it highlights
vulnerability and sweet innocence. The work was made after a residency on Arthur Boyd's property,
Bundanon, in NSW.
Bones appear in Kitson 's body of work. Skulls connote lost life and refer us to the swift passing of
time - memento mori, a reminder of mortality. Kitson gathers decayed and bleached vertebrae and
skulls from various places in NSW and Victoria. She gives them new life. The bones are "coated in a
THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2011 23