Visionaries

JO VICTORIA
Jo is a ceramic artist specialising in sculptural porcelain and slipcast porcelain lighting. Jo
worked as an anthropologist and archaeologist for many years before returning to the
Australian National University School of Art to study ceramics. Her artworks reference
fossils and shards and explore stories of place where evidence of the interactions
between nature and culture can be revealed.
Jo’s work explores ideas of place by collecting and dipping found objects and organic
material in porcelain. Jo is attracted to the whiteness and translucency of porcelain.
It contains similar qualities to bleached bones, fossils and broken shells. The organic
material burns away during the firing process leaving traces, shards and fragments.
These works feel fossil like in the way that they capture the life essence of once living
things.
Light Fall is a hand crafted chandelier made from thousands of palm pressed pieces
of porcelain that have been threaded onto black wire. When the spot light shines on
the translucent porcelain shards, palm lines and hand prints can be seen through the
material. In a contemporary design context where hard surfaces and edges dominate
architectural spaces, Light Fall offers a softly falling gentle light with shadow play to
caress the senses and massage the soul. The reference to the human touch of the hand
made material can be experienced by viewers as a light caress in even the most severe
and cold spaces.
Jo Victoria, Insectum, 2018, porcelain,
35 x 20cm. Photo: Art Atelier.
$620