The work of Kellie Miller By Kate Blok

Ceramics has a central place in the history of civilisation…. Everything we [ceramicists] make is produced within the context of time, and place and culture” 1

Kellie Miller’s new ceramics make a clear and decisive departure from her previous work. For the last eight years she has created stunning and original wall-mounted ceramic art, designing unusual forms decorated with a harmonious palate of colour and texture. Her trademark surface design makes reference to many of her experiences, including her early work in textiles, her wide-ranging travel experiences and love of life. She has now set aside the quest for a utopian ideal of the dyad and draws together a community of pieces coexisting in infinitely varied structures. The complex construction of the pieces, by hand building and slip casting, is belied by their apparent simplicity.

Miller continues to develop her distinctive originality in these new sets of forms unified again by decoration, but in unfamiliar values. As the shapes are not immediately recognizable, they initially can feel inaccessible. But these peculiar forms, which further subvert our expectations by being wall-mounted rather than on a plinth, force us to look at them in an entirely new light, and on their own terms.

This contrived display of her ceramic pieces also takes control of a gallery space, disabusing curators from including a token ceramicist in order just to create contrast with the hanging of paintings on the wall. The work, like the woman, is complex, bold and involving

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