Honourable Mention of the 2025 SSCP
This series of vessels draws heavily on the textures, surfaces, objects and landscapes ubiquitous in, yet unique to, remote communities. The patinated metal of decaying car yards, squashed flour tins, abandoned and decaying tools, stray shoes, and hard baked earth. These wayward objects, a curious feature of the last decade of morning walks, are at the centre of these works both materially and conceptually. The lids and handles of the vessels are crafted from windscreen wipers, speaker components, and ratchet straps, salvaged from burnt out cars.
The ceramic forms are built from iron rich clay with a simple three part calcium matte glaze, carefully applied and wiped back to resemble patinated metal. Salvaged materials have become central to my practice because they are accessible, affordable, and because they are embedded with histories, memories, and stories. I also love how repurposing necessitates a making process that is very material lead, where the found objects shape the work as much as I do. There’s something deeply satisfying in finding possibility in what has been discarded, and in thinking about objects not as fixed, but as part of a longer life cycle of transformation and reuse.
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Em Frank is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is grounded in the idea that collaborative and collective art making is the most exciting, generative and disruptive use of art. Working in ceramics as her primary medium, Em’s practice extends across drawing, painting, mixed media and assemblage, with a proclivity for discarded and broken materials. Over the last decade Em has worked as a facilitator and collaborator with remote First Nations communities on all sorts projects from ceramics, painting and printing, to public murals, large scale sculptures and animation.
Usually based in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, Em is currently living in Tarntanya/Adelaide while undertaking the Jam Factory Ceramics Associateship. Em works with Ku Arts and Iwiri Arts, teaches ceramics at TAFE, and facilitates remote art projects with Tjanpi Desert Weavers in the APY Lands.
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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:
Material: stoneware, glaze, salvaged metal
Dimensions: approx. cm
Please note when purchasing, exhibition works are to be collected when exhibition closes.
Shipping costs may be estimates. Please feel free to contact shop@craft.org.au who will be available to provide an Art Courier quote or shipping costs for larger items.
