Art + Designed Objects Collection


Project: Kelly Austin - Ceramic Artist

A red and a white ceramic vessel sitting on a white shelf, with a tan ceramic sheet draped precariously over the edge.

Kelly Austin - ceramic artist

'An Elemental Persistence'


I have documented the work of Kelly Austin for several years now. This project is a good example of how the documenting of art and design objects often becomes collaborative.


Documenting 'An Elemental Persistence'  became story telling - of Kelly's artist residency in Queenstown on the west coast Tasmania, as well as the resultant ceramic works for exhibition. The landscapes and textures were used in publications and artist talks promoting the project and the final exhibition at Bett Gallery Hobart. 

Queenstown road cutting exposing beautiful mineral colours and a seem of white quartz juxtaposed with the graphic asphalt and double white lines of the road.
A composition of ceramic forms on a black shelf with some forms overhanging the front edge.
Detail of a stoneware object on a black shelf.
Rock and mineral samples being tested for use in ceramics production.
Panorama of the red rocks of Mt Owen shrouded in cloud.
Very dark image of a minimalist grey ceramic collar on a black background.
Dark composition of speckled ceramic forms.
Queenstown road cutting exposing beautiful mineral colours lit as if it we in an underground mine.
Queenstown road cutting exposing beautiful mineral colours and the dramatic drill holes.
Light coloured and white ceramic forms on a white shelf.
Dark ceramic forms with a sheet of wobbly glass on a black shelf.
A stoneware circle for standing upright on the end of a piece of timber.
Very dark image of a minimalist grey ceramic collar on a black background.
A landscape of severe mining erosion.
Tiny settlement of houses with green grass dwarfed beneath a mountainous vista of mine tailings.
A dark cylindrical ceramic form behind a bubbly glazed cube for on a black shelf.
The artist scraping her fingers though moist clay in a cutting on a track.
A dramatic orangy tan bucket form ceramic with an unusual single low placed wire handle.
Detail of the low placed wire handle on a background of the ceramic colour.
Close up of dramatic drill holes in a Queenstown road cutting exposing beautiful mineral colours.
A ceramic bottle form beside a non-functional ceramic circular form suggesting a bowl.
An old disused water tank crudely constructed from concrete and locally available gravel in front of mountains of mine tailings.
A composition of ceramic forms on a white shelf with some forms overhanging the front edge.
Beautiful pink/red minerals in the bottom of a small creek with reflections of reeds in the surface of the water.
A composition of ceramic forms on a black shelf with some forms overhanging the front edge.
Large rain covered man fern frond in a fern grove.
A non-functional ceramic form suggesting an eating implement laying over the edge of a red glazed ceramic plate form.
A composition of ceramic forms on a black shelf with some forms overhanging the front edge.
The clean water of the mist covered King River against a wall of rainforest.
The polluted water of the Queen River against a wall of rainforest.
Close up of dramatic drill holes in a Queenstown road cutting exposing beautiful mineral colours.
A tall red stoneware ceramic forms beside a low white circle, with a ceramic ribbon hanging off a cantilevered white shelf.
Artist working at trestle tables in QBank Studio surrounded by works on paper on the walls, ceramic glaze test and her trusty bicycle.

Earlier Kelly Austin work.

Low white vessel beside contrasting orange cylinder.
Solo red bowl at the end of a row of pale vessels on white background.
White cylindrical vessel beside white ring resting on a red ceramic plug.
A subtle white on white ceramic composition on a white shelf.
Stoneware circular form balanced on a cylinder.
Using Format