Jess Graham’s passion for ceramics has been unwavering considering that she was released to the medium as a high school elective in yr eight. She was immediately drawn to the tactile procedure of constructing some thing up from a uncomplicated block of clay. Jess wound up getting the topic for the rest of her education profession, and then into university.
The rising artistic graduated from her Bachelor of High-quality Art at RMIT in the middle of final 12 months. Her 3-yr program was stretched out to 3 and a 50 % many years simply because of the pandemic, but it pushed her to ‘create a space’ for herself and her art – literally and figuratively!
‘I’ve usually enjoyed hand setting up pieces, and despite the fact that I do even now wheel throw things and use my pottery wheel, I do adore the way that hand build parts glimpse,’ Jess states.
‘Throughout my diploma I always located myself gravitating to all-natural clay bodies and not utilizing a total heap of colour in my work. It was not till the final year of my diploma that I started out creating my bulge parts, but I don’t see myself stopping any time before long.’
It was these marginally kooky creations with natural and organic, overflowing ‘bulges’ that acquired Jess a location in Craft Victoria’s annual New! Awards, in which she took home two coveted prizes, such as The Style Information Emerging Maker Award and The John Wardle Architects Craft Prize, a lot to Jess’s surprise!
‘Winning two prizes at the Craft Victoria Clean! Awards was a substantial shock to me,’ she suggests. ‘I was heading into the opening of the exhibition just to admire the perform all over me and not anticipating a detail.’
Now an award-successful graduate, Jess is a ceramicist by working day and a hospitality employee in a neighborhood pub by night time – and on weekends. Her exercise has a dual emphasis far too, as she generates the two purposeful and sculptural pieces. These vary from uncomplicated, speckled cups, bowls and vases, to her extra sculptural parts and one of a kind vessels, impressed by the human type (which clarifies her shapely creations!) and the operate of a different Melbourne ceramicist Zhu Ohmu.
Jess has lately established up her have studio place in the back of her share dwelling, in which she’s occupied doing work on new pieces and a feasible assortment, so view this place!