Lindy McSwan – 'Commonplace Vessel I', 2023

The ubiquitous corrugated cardboard box is a familiar everyday object. During Melbourne’s long and repeated COVID lockdowns, it became material to contemplate and create notions of containment. Deconstructed, reconstructed, and coloured with handmade pigments; a rust infusion from steel offcuts salvaged from my practice, ground rust, charcoal and quartz became materials for developing surface and patina. Finished with crayons made from ground pigments and beeswax. In an abstract manner, the resultant works express forms of commonplace dwellings, shelters, and structures in urban, industrial, rural and remote landscapes across Australia.

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Using the vessel as her canvas, Lindy McSwan expresses notions of the sublime in these remote places where harsh extremes in weather sculpt the landscape. Experimental surface applications, most often using enamel articulate the beauty of surfaces she observes in the landscape – through both a wider panoramic view to detailed and close observation at a macro level. McSwan completed a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Honours, Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT University (2014). Her practice has developed to include jewellery, vessels, small sculptural objects, and works in paper. Lindy has exhibited in group shows nationally and internationally. In June 2015, Lindy received an Australia Council for the Arts, ArtStart Grant.

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Vessel Project

June 1- July 29

The Vessel Project is an exploration of the vessel en masse, as imagined by Melbourne’s most creative practitioners. The showcase continues the examination of modern amphorae in Jugs, and celebrates Craft's curatorial collaboration with the NGV for Vessels – now showing as part of Melbourne Now at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. 

Read about the exhibition.

Material: corrugated cardboard, rust, charcoal, beeswax

Dimensions:  23 x 24 x 30cm

Photography: Henry Trumble