Janet Fieldhouse: Body Ornaments

Exhibition Website

Jan 27 2017 - May 21 2017

This exhibition of works by Indigenous Australian artist Janet Fieldhouse sits at the intersection between contemporary ceramic practice and the cultural traditions of the Torres Strait Islands. Fieldhouse’s “woven” ceramic practice is particularly inspired by historical and contemporary practices of Torres Strait women, such as the creation of mats, baskets, pendants and armbands. Other works created by Fieldhouse explore her desire to preserve designs from female rituals of scarification, where a woman’s skin is cut or burned to produce permanent markings in scar tissue rather than ink. While this is no longer practiced today, the designs retain their cultural significance, and it is these two-dimensional patterns that Fieldhouse transforms into her raku clay sculptures.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

  • Sculpture
  • Indigenous
  • Contemporary
  • Culture / Lifestyle
  • Oceanic (Australia, Melanesia, New Zealand, and Polynesia)
  • Janet Fieldhouse

Exhibition Venues & Dates