Julienne Lewis
Julienne Lewis — Fallout Series II - 046, 2025
DONE/UNDONE
Curated by Joseph Gardner
VISIONARIES 2025: Presenting the future of Australian art, craft and design through the lens of one the country's most influential creatives.
—
The Fallout Series from Julienne Lewis explores vessels that are a potent symbol of culture, reflecting a society's values and ethics. Julienne reinterprets this fundamental artifact to reflect the current climate, aiming to elicit an emotional response from the viewer. The hand-built sculptural vessels she creates are surprisingly light, embodying both fragility and strength. Through layered slips and multiple firings, she explores sustainability, form and texture, producing a range of vessels to illuminate our moment in time.
Created from the desire to seek beauty as a form of protest against injustice much is hidden in these pieces and only revealed with time and attention. The fossil-like quality connects with the past and the gaps in the forms remind us of our own impermanence. We are bonded by this reality of impending decay; we live in the ‘fallout’.
‘In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty.’ Phil Ochs
—
Julienne Lewis’s ceramics reflect a lifelong pursuit of beauty as a counterbalance to life's injustices. Crafted from the earth, her pieces are intended to evoke a sense of the organic, referencing the human form, culture and emotions. Their timeless, fossil-like quality gives the pieces the impression of having been ‘unearthed’ rather than created.
The study of anthropology provided an opportunity for Julienne to hone her appreciation of the link between culture and landscape, deeply influencing her approach to colour, form and texture. Refining her artistic expression through garden design and jewellery making, eventually lead to the discovery of life-changing ceramics training at the School of Clay and Art.
14 November 2025 - 7 February 2026
View the collection
Joseph Gardner is the 2025 Visionaries curator – presenting DONE/UNDONE: an exhibition of 50+ artists, and one of Craft’s largest exhibitions to date – featuring artists working across medium, scale and practice, representing exceptional Australian talent.
DONE/UNDONE explores the creative process as a space of constant negotiation – a series of decisions to build, erase, repeat, or let be. It’s about that intuitive moment when a maker chooses to pause, to push further, or to dismantle entirely. These are the choices that define the rhythm of making – choices familiar to artists, designers, and creators across disciplines.
Joseph Gardner is the Style Editor at Vogue Living, with a decade of experience in publishing and styling, and the founder of Sydney-based gallery, Studio Gardner.
—
Material: Selection of clays, slips including iron oxide, copper, French black, black cobalt underglaze and kusnik. Multiple glazes and firings in oxidation
Dimensions: approx. 36 x 19 x 15cm
Please note: purchased works are to be collected at the conclusion of the exhibition (7 February 2026).
Shipping costs may be estimates. Please contact us via shop@craft.org.au and we will be available to provide an Art Courier quote or shipping costs for larger items.