Stephen Benwell — 'Ornament Three Heads' Sculptural Ceramic, 2006

''When I began making ceramics in the early 1970s, the prevailing trend was an Anglo-Japanese rural style of pottery championed by the English writer and potter Bernard Leach. I thought then , as I still do, that this was a very narrow view of the influences at hand when sitting down to make a pot. Since then a kind of eclectic sampling from the historical examples of ceramics has been, for better or worse, my modus operandi. The group of my pots in this exhibition are a good example of this approach to making pots", Stephen Benwell.

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Stephen Benwell is a ceramic artist, based in St Kilda, Melbourne, since the 1980s. Benwell received a Diploma of Art from the VCA in 1974, a Diploma of Education from Melbourne State College in 1976 and he received an MFA from Monash University in 2005. The artist undertook a residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris in 1984–1985. He was honoured with a retrospective of his work at Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2013. In the same year, Benwell was selected to exhibit in Melbourne Now, the National Gallery of Victoria’s survey of contemporary creative practice. In 2010, Benwell was the recipient of the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, and in 2009, he was awarded the Inaugural Deakin University Small Sculpture Award. Benwell is represented by LON Gallery, Melbourne.

Benwell has long been recognised for his trailblazing approach to the medium and is heralded as one of the most significant figures in contemporary ceramics in Australia.