Ceramicist Tessy King Sifts through Wikipedia and Hard Rubbish Piles for Inspiration

Ceramicist Tessy King says her practice is influenced by “the internet, hard rubbish piles, and quotes on Wikipedia.”

Speaking to The Creators Project, the Melbourne-based artist also cites “the 70s, 80s and 90s, plants, summer, National Geographic magazine, the architecture of Albert Frey, films, and this awesome iridescent perspex that my housemate found in a skip bin” as sources of visual inspiration for her ceramic objects.

It’s an abstract list of ideas and experiences, but it actually seems apt when considering King’s eye-catchingly warped vessels and sculptures.

The young object maker is halfway through her honours year in Fine Art at RMIT, and she’s currently experimenting with merging video projection and her ceramics practice. “It's a lot of fun combining those two very different mediums,” she tells The Creators Project.

“My objects have changed in scale this year as well,” she says. “I've pushed myself to up the size of my vessels.”

King never really got into the pottery wheel, preferring to build by hand. “I'm not picky when it comes to which clay I use, but I do like to fire to stoneware,” she says. “I use a few different underglazes and either my own glazes or commercial glazes and sometimes a bit of lustre. I either spray on the glaze or paint or dip, depending on what surface I'm after.”

“My process is always changing as my work progresses,” she says. “I'm not fixated on a perfect way of doing things as that's one of the nice things about working with ceramics— there are lots of ways to finish a piece.”

King is friends with Jessilla Rogers, a fellow ceramicist who has come to represent a new generation of young, avant garde Australian artists injecting new life into an old school discipline. “I have so many of her pieces making me happy around my home,” she says. She also admires Sydney-based artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran.

“Obviously there's a big resurgence happening in ceramics and Melbourne seems to have its place in this,” she notes. “But I would say that the work that I notice or am drawn to the most is distinctive to a particular artist, things that I haven't seen before—not necessarily a place or a time.”

“For me it's hard to differentiate Melbourne or Australia even from what is happening globally, as I'm so connected to the internet.”

You can find out more about Tessy King here and follow her on Instagram.

Related:

Art Scout: Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran Is Breaking The Traditions of Ceramics One Dick at a Time

Grace Brown's Distinctly Australian Ceramics Are Relaxed, Playful and a Little Bit Odd

Melbourne's Jessilla Rogers on Her Endearingly Imperfect Ceramics