Rose Walker Penneshaw, 2024, porcelain, 11 x 6 x 10cm. Photo: Rose Walker

First solo exhibition by expert local ceramicist whose artworks express the constant change and unpredictability of the land and give a sensitive impression of a place and time.

Rose Walker has been working with ceramics for over two decades, forging her own signature style and vision.

Growing up in Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island surrounded by water, with endless views of the ocean and its magnificent rugged and ever changing coastline, it was inevitable that I would choose this landscape as an inspiration for my passion. I pursued painting and drawing before ceramics and have always gravitated towards landscape impressionism which has been my main source of inspiration - in transferring this to clay.

Walker’s wheel-thrown forms provide a quiet surface with a combination of glazes that reflect the vastness of her landscapes. She employs the process of glaze-on-glaze to “create a materialised reflection of personal meaning, making and memory”.

Her most recent endeavours include porcelain slip-casting with a combination of intaglio printing and monotype techniques, as well as exploring Japanese Nerikomi that uses slabs of different coloured clays, stacked, folded, pressed into logs, sliced and arranged to form patterns.

My two dreams for my ceramics practice have always been to supply restaurants with tableware and to have a solo exhibition.

In addition and in contrast to her art object practice, Walker’s handmade ceramics business RAW creates “simple, handmade, nature-inspired tableware and homewares that are designed to be used as part of a family celebrating life’s daily pleasures of coming together at mealtimes.” RAW has completed numerous commissions for cafes, restaurants and wineries Commissions — RAW Ceramics (rosewalker.com.au)

Rose began her art research with a Certificate 4 in Art & Design at Mt. Barker TAFE in 2001. After graduating in 2003, she studied a Distant Ceramics Undergraduate Course at the Australian National University’s School of Art & Design, which included a visit to the major ceramics workshop Jingdezhen in China, as part of a four-week training residency. She currently teaches Ceramics in wheel-throwing, hand-building and glaze techniques at Henley and Grange Arts Society, as well as in her Murray Bridge Studio.