JamFactory presents Ceramica Maxima

Ceramica Maxima is a flamboyant showcase of colour, shape, form, pattern and texture as explored by nine contemporary Australian ceramic artists through the painted and glazed surfaces of their pottery. Heavily decorated, haphazardly glazed and layered with colour, the artworks in this exhibition celebrate a painterly aesthetic and underscore the unusual beauty that can be found in decorative maximalism and deliberate imperfection.

Exhibitors: Ryan Hancock (NSW), Claire Johnson (NSW), James Lemon (VIC/NZ), Tessy McAuslan-King (VIC), Bruce Nuske (SA), Luke Ryan O’Connor (NSW), Kirsten Perry (VIC), Nadia Robertson (VIC) and Ebony Russell (NSW).

Ceramica Maxima is showing at JamFactory Seppeltsfield from 1 May – 11 July 2021.

In vivid contrast to the aesthetic trend towards Scandinavian simplicity, restrained colour palettes, stark minimalism and the pious decluttering of our material lives, artists who embrace decorative maximalism approach the making process with a distinctly ‘more is more’ ethos. Often playful, experimental, visually opulent and charmingly haphazard, maximalist decorative arts objects are characterised by loose, flowing lines, haphazardly applied embellishments, abstract illustrations and patterns, bold, often clashing colour choices, irregularly shaped forms and layered material complexity. Informed by the traditional Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, whereby imperfection is heralded as adding beauty, value and richness to objects as opposed to detracting from them, these decorative arts objects eschew the narrow definition of perfection and conventional beauty to instead find beauty in the strange, unusual and imperfect.

In celebration of the unusual and imperfect beauty of decorative maximalism, JamFactory presents Ceramica Maxima, a visually rich and diverse survey of artwork by nine contemporary Australian ceramic artists who use their vessels and sculptures as a canvas to explore and experiment with texture, form, materiality and surface decoration. Curated by JamFactory Assistant Curator Caitlin Eyre, Ceramica Maxima invites the viewer to cast aside perfection, precision, control and the hallmarks of conventional beauty in order to appreciate the charm of decorative maximalism, pronounced materiality and deliberate imperfection in this increasingly digitised and technologically-driven age.

To find out more about this exhibition, please see the Ceramica Maxima Artist Profiles.