Building upon her own transdisciplinary art practice, recent McCahon House artist in residence, Jess Johnson, has curated a collection of ceramic objects by makers who work from the underbelly of contemporary ceramics, where the gothic, punk, macabre, mythological, and magikal prevail.
Presented in an immersive space designed by Johnson in homage to the horror anthologies and science-fiction omnibuses she grew up reading, Antireality perversion void marks an intersection (or portal, or wormhole) between world building and clay working, asking how the ceramic object or vessel might be a container for entire alternate realities and speculative futures.
Artists Janet Beckhouse, Emily Hunt, Rose Salmon, Nichola Shanley and Laurie Steer each approach this question through their own unique perspective and style, yet all create works as immersive, imaginative and playfully anarchic as the environment Johnson has created to house them. Alongside Portage 2021, Antireality perversion void offers a view from the other side of Aotearoa’s Janus-faced contemporary ceramic arts.
Image: Jess Johnson, Antireality perversion void, 2021 (detail)