Em Frank
Em Frank — Patina Teapot l, 2025
DONE/UNDONE
Curated by Joseph Gardner
VISIONARIES 2025: Presenting the future of Australian art, craft and design through the lens of one of the country's most influential creatives.
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In the mark-making of damage and wear, and the ongoing lifecycle of repair and reuse, this collection of vessels from Em Frank brings together materials that do not usually coexist – industrial metal handles on delicate ceramic forms, shattered windscreen glass melted into glaze. Interested in how things come apart and are put back together in a new life, Em Frank's work often begins with a moment of material curiosity, sparked by everyday surfaces that have succumb to their environment. The texture of an eroded wall, paint cracking in the sun, or the soft folds of a metal object that has been squashed.
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Em Frank is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is grounded in material exploration and collective making. Working primarily in ceramics, she also draws on discarded and industrial materials from various mediums. Her recent work reimagines these low-status materials as sites of beauty, and explores processes of decay and repair as essential forms of craft. For the past decade, Em has worked with remote Central Desert communities on projects spanning ceramics, fibre art, painting and animation. She is currently a Jam Factory Ceramics associate and works as a facilitator and technician with Ku Arts, Iwiri Arts, and Tjanpi Desert Weavers.
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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.
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Material: Stoneware clay, glaze, steel, found metal
Dimensions: approx. 23 x 20 x 13cm
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.