86 - A ceramics gallery in Australia

Ceramics Now Weekly #86 features an interview with the director of Sabbia Gallery, an essay on Li Hongwei's exhibition at the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, the week's news in ceramics, and new artists.

Apr 09, 2025

Hello! Welcome to the 86th edition of Ceramics Now Weekly. This is Vasi Hirdo, the founding editor of Ceramics Now.

I hope you are doing well today 👋

Before we begin, I'd like to highlight the April 2025 issue of Ceramics Now Magazine, which features the expressive work of Nora Arrieta on the cover. The issue includes several essays and reviews, is 120 pages long, and is ad-free. Ceramics Now members get instant access to the magazine. Learn more about subscriptions and join our community here if you haven't already.

Let's see what's new.

Shaping a Legacy: Anna Grigson on two decades of Sabbia Gallery

For twenty years, Sabbia Gallery has played a vital role in shaping the landscape of contemporary ceramics, glass, and fibre art in Australia. From its beginnings in Surry Hills in 2005 through its evolution to a thriving gallery, Sabbia has remained the only commercial space in Australia solely dedicated to these mediums.

To mark its 20th anniversary in 2025, Sabbia presented twenty, a landmark exhibition featuring 68 artists and over 50 newly commissioned works, accompanied by a national public program and a commemorative publication. On this occasion, we spoke with Anna Grigson about the gallery's origins, its impact over two transformative decades, and the evolving practices of the artists it represents. In this conversation, she reflects on Sabbia's most meaningful collaborations, the importance of mentorship, the resilience of artists, and the values that continue to shape the gallery.

The phenomenology of gravity in the work of Li Hongwei

By Benjamin Evans

To say that the theme of "duality" is at the core of Li Hongwei's elegant body of sculpture is, at best, an understatement. Here is a partial list of some of the binary oppositions at play in his work: Old vs. new, East vs. West, hand-made vs. industrial, delicate vs. strong, Yin vs. Yang, functional vessel vs. non-functional sculpture, lightness vs. weight, organic vs. geometric, literal vs. metaphorical, complexity vs. simplicity, the real vs. the reflection, heaven vs. earth [...]

Clay, traditionally associated with the earth, is here often transformed into something lighter than air. Creating a simple chart of these binary oppositions is impossible. Instead, we are faced with overlapping, contradicting, and intersecting lines of interpretive possibility, something perhaps like the twigs of a bird's nest, that belie the simplicity and intuitive harmony radiating from the objects on first encounter.

New featured artists in Ceramics Now

The week’s news in the ceramic world

🥇 Applications are now open for the XIX CERCO International Contemporary Ceramics Award, to be held between September and November in Zaragoza, Spain. The award is organized every two years within the CERCO Festival, and offers several prizes, including the CERCO Award (€6,000). The competition is open to all ceramic artists from around the world and has no thematic restrictions. Registration is open until June 11, 2025.

🧶 Applications are open for the 2025 Cheongju International Craft Competition (South Korea) until May 2, 2025. The competition aims to discover the finest contemporary craft artworks that reflect the current trends and future of crafts. Several prizes will be awarded, including one Grand Prize (~$40,000) and a Gold Prize (~$13,500), among others. Winners residing overseas will be provided with round-trip airfare and accommodation to attend the award ceremony.

🏆 ceramic brussels fair invites artists based in the European Union to apply for the 2026 ceramic brussels art prize, an annual award for contemporary ceramic creations. The ten laureates will be exhibited in a group show during the fair’s next year’s edition, and several prizes will be awarded, including a solo show, an international residency, and/or an acquisition. The call is open to artists not represented by a gallery and with less than ten years of experience and research in ceramics. Applications are due May 21, 2025. Application fee: €25.

⏳ April is the last month you can apply to the MARTINSONS AWARD 2025 International Ceramics Competition under the 5th Latvia Ceramics Biennale. This edition's theme: From Stardust to Lush Sprouts. Latvia Ceramics Biennale is a key event in contemporary ceramics in the Baltic Sea region, attracting artists from all over the world and seeking to develop and promote contemporary ceramics in Latvia and the Baltic region. The biennale will take place between September 5, 2025, and February 1, 2026.

💬 The Office for the Arts at Harvard Ceramics Program hosts a free online lecture with ceramic artist Hillary Kane on Thursday, April 17, at 5 PM EDT. Kane's global journey—from Cameroon to Japan, Bali to New England—informs a practice rooted in place, duality, and material exploration. Co-founder of Gaya Ceramic Arts Center in Bali, she works in both clay and paint, focusing on wood and soda-fired ceramics. Her talk will reflect on creativity shaped by travel, motherhood, and the search for balance between two homes, with wood-firing at the heart of her creative life.

👌 County Hall Pottery (London) offers a year-long Potter In Residence programme, designed to nurture artistic growth and foster professional connections within a vibrant community of makers. They seek a talented and enthusiastic ceramic artist/designer/potter to join for a year-long residency. The residency provides the time, space, and resources to experiment and produce a new body of work. Read more about this opportunity and apply before April 28.

🟫 The current John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI) artist-in-residence, E. Saffronia Downing, invites artists to contribute to a collaborative project by sending foraged wild clay. Submit a quart-size zip bag of unfired clay, along with a letter describing your foraging site and experience, to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (608 New York Ave, Sheboygan, WI 53081) by June 13, 2025. All submissions will be featured alongside Downing’s residency exhibition, highlighting local connections to land and material.

🌿 The twenty-first edition of the renowned Intonation International Clay Symposium recently took place in Deidesheim, Germany. Invited artists: Leopold Masterson, Eglė Einikytė-Narkevičienė, EIAIR, Friederike Zeit Narum, Svein Narum, Ming-Miao Ko, Ute Beck. You can see images from this year's edition on Friederike's Instagram page.

📙 If you live in the UK, you've probably heard of The Great Pottery Throw Down show. The homonym book will be released this month on Bookshop.org (US) and Amazon (World). Accompanying potters on their creative journey, this book teaches the basics of both handbuilding and throwing techniques before taking you through 20 projects inspired by the show's challenges. The projects are aimed to build on your skills as you work through them, starting with an egg cup or mug and working up to a jug or teapot.

🎓 Jobs Board: Wolf Ceramics (Hood River, OR) is hiring a Production Potter / St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY) is hiring a Ceramics Instructor

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Exhibitions

Discover these ceramic exhibitions that were recently featured in Ceramics Now.

🔍 What's on View

A selection of ceramic exhibitions currently on view around the world.

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