AN ODE TO CREATION ; Woman Sculpture Artists

‘The job of an artist is to always deepen the mystery.’ - Francis Bacon

A curation of five different women artists from around the globe who create ceramic sculptures by contemporary and traditional methods with each drawing their inspiration from various sources and creating something truly unique and stunning.

1. Zhu Ohmu,a Melbourne based artist creates beautiful ceramic vessels, with care and a deep understanding of the medium. She celebrates the human quality of clay - the way it changes in response to the maker and the environment. She drives her inspiration from Mother Nature, academia and the Internet.

Images courtesy of Zhu Ohmu.

2. Swedish artist Malou Palmqvist creates gravity-defying stone sculptures. Her organic shapes are a well-studied but odd interpretation of scattered pieces of waste that might wash ashore near her home along with seaweed.

The sculptures juxtapose amorphous shapes made of clay, with wooden bases and geometric stone plaster forms, play with gravity and are interesting at every angle. She finds her inspiration in the nature around her, the barren rocks, the formations and the textures of the cliffs, of where she lives in southwest Sweden.

Images courtesy of Malou Palmqvist.

3.Drawing inspiration from her mother’s antique collecting, Maxine Midtbo, Cincinnati based ceramist is fascinated by the relationship between object and memory. She creates vessels adorned with jewelry, glass, tiles, coins, shells and other found items and repurposes to create mosaics on her vessels, connecting time periods and weaving stories into each one.

Maxine's work embodies our nostalgic relationship with things as well as the importance of appreciating what we already have.

Images courtesy of Maxine Mitbdo.

4. Jan Vogelpoel is a Melbourne based sculptor, she draws on her experience in graphic design to create sculptural ceramic artworks celebrating line and form with architectural flair. She uses the coiling method to create the initial forms, then spends time refining and shaping each one-of-a-kind object.

Her passion lies in the process of bringing an idea to life through manipulating and building sculptural pieces, transferring the energy of the maker, and the story of the material, into each piece.

Images courtesy of Jan Vogelpoel.

5. Simone Bodmer-Turner is a California-born, Brooklyn-based ceramicist who creates ceramic sculptures and vessels. She works as a hand-build artist, creating distinctly contemporary works that draw from traditional clay vessels.

Inspired by the longstanding clay techniques and traditional forms that many communities throughout the world used long before her, she hopes that her work has the magic and ritual that such vessels once held. And pays homage to ancient forms in her work.

Images courtesy of Simone Bodmer-Turner.

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