Amelia Lynch – 'Kaleidoscope I', Sculpture, 2022

This body of ceramic work reimagines the vessel as both a form of protection and exposure. Drawing from the fragile and resilient ecologies of the Australian coastline, layered rock, seaweed blooms, bleached shells, and tidal shifts these hand-built sculptures explore the tension between vulnerability and strength in the natural world. Using coiling, slab-building, and additive techniques, I construct large-scale biomorphic forms whose textured surfaces, crater glazes, and oxides evoke geological and marine processes.

Emerging from lived experience on the Central Coast of NSW, the work becomes a material response to environmental change, acting as a conceptual archive of erosion, adaptation, and repair. Blending traditional ceramic knowledge with experimental surface research, this series invites reflection on memory, transformation, and our evolving relationship to place. The result is a raw yet refined collection that speaks to both regional specificity and broader climate realities

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Amelia Lynch is a ceramic artist based on the Central Coast of NSW, working at the intersection of sculpture, vessel, and environmental narrative. Her practice responds to the coastal landscape, drawing on geological formations, marine ecologies, and the effects of climate change. Through hand building techniques and experimental surface treatments, she creates textured, layered forms that evoke erosion, sedimentation, and organic growth. Her work is both raw and refined, rooted in traditional ceramic knowledge while pushing the boundaries of form and surface. Lynch’s studio practice is slow, tactile, and deeply investigative grounded in place, memory, and material transformation.

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Shelley Simpson Ceramics Prize 2025

 2 – 30 August

Mud Australia is partnering with Craft to present this year's Shelley Simpson Ceramics Prize. Now in its fifth year, the prize is open to all Australian ceramicists and awards innovative, sustainable and emerging talent with a $10,000 fund to support and accelerate their practice. This year, for the first time, the selected finalists are celebrated in a four-week exhibition in Craft's Atrium gallery space.

The SSCP was established in 2020 by Shelley Simpson – Mud Australia’s Founder and Creative Director – and continues to recognise and support emerging and early-career ceramicists working across the spectrum of contemporary practice.

Read more about the exhibition here: