Danielle Thiris
Danielle Thiris — 'Part Love Letter, Part Memoir', Sculptural Ceramic, 2025
Holding millions of years in my palm represents a dialogue between time, material, and form. Rooted in Thiris’ Cypriot and Greek heritage, as well as childhood experiences in Egypt, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, this body of work examines conjoined vessels as both sculptural objects and symbolic forms—an interplay of history, function, and abstraction. Each piece merges elements from diverse historical vessel traditions, as well as incorporating elements observed in the everyday.
This new body of work further considers how objects are categorised in museums, which traditionally segment items by era, geography, material or culture. Such categories often create the illusion that artistic traditions and material cultures exist in isolation. In reality, makers, objects, skills and ideas have always moved, evolved and borrowed from one another.
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Danielle Thiris builds her conjoined ceramic pieces entirely by hand, working with South Australian terracotta clay and using techniques that have been employed for millennia: coiling, pinching, and carving. Collected materials, such as Murray River campfire ash and Wonboyn oyster shells, find their way into her glazes, embedding landscape and history into her surface treatment. Her pieces evoke the past while remaining contemporary, resulting in striking forms that sit somewhere between the ritualistic and the playful. Thiris' work invites contemplation, challenging the distinctions between the historical and modern, functional and sculptural, connection and separation.
Thiris holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the University of South Australia and a Bachelor of Textile Design from RMIT University. Her work has been exhibited at NGV Ian Potter, Craft Victoria, Oigall Projects, and NGV Melbourne Design Week. Three of her pieces are held in the Australian Catholic University’s Art Collection.
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Main Gallery
March 15 - May 3 2025
A contemporary response to the heritage and legacies of craft practice, featuring the work of six diverse practitioners.
Material: terracotta, terra sigillata, oystershell, ash, pigment, midfire glaze
Dimensions: approx. 14.5 x 12 x 15 cm
Please note when purchasing, exhibition works are to be collected when exhibition closes.