object eye
Andrea Hylands - HYPERCLAY
Thursday November 10 2011
Welcome to the fifth instalment of our 8-part series, profiling the artists featured in our current exhibition, HYPERCLAY: Contemporary Ceramics. You can catch up on all of the previous entries here.
This week: Andrea Hylands.
Hylands grew up initially in Iran, where her parents were based, before relocating to the UK, where she went to art college. European artists then became her influence, prior to her moving to Australia in the early 1980s. Here, she set up her studio in central Victoria, beginning her ceramics practice in earnest.
Hylands work for HYPERCLAY, New Warriors, is a collection of 55 slipcast bone china figures on a found wooden base. Each figure is unique, the result of hand manoeuvred slip within a mould, lined up in rows on the base. They are beautiful, fragile-looking pieces, simple and complex at the same time.
The process of creating New Warriors is detailed in a video on her process that can be viewed here, one of a number of videos on Hylands and part of over two hours of content created to complement the HYPERCLAY exhibition.
The beauty and fragility of the environment provide her initial inspiration — the starting point for Hylands’ work is where she lives, the land, animals, spaces around her. It is therefore no surprise that the inspiration for New Warriors came from China’s famous Terracotta Army, which is located near an exhibition Hylands was involved with at the genesis of this work. New Warriors is her interpretation of the Terracotta Army.
But Hylands doesn’t just create beautiful ceramic pieces. She and her husband also have an award-winning production company, Creative Cowboy, that makes documentaries about art and culture both in Australia and overseas. You can find out more from their website.
New Warriors demonstrates Hylands’ mastery of ceramic technique, and will tour to all venues over the next few years. For a full list of dates and venues, and more information on HYPERCLAY, click here.
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Visiting Object
St. Margarets, 417 Bourke St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Tuesday-Friday: 11am-5pm
Saturday & Sunday: 10am-5pm
Free admission
+61 2 9361 4511
gallery@object.com.au
