Narelle White
Narelle White is a contemporary Australian artist who primarily works in the ceramic medium. Her sculptures are an amalgam of geologic and bio-morphic references, and speak to a spirited relationship between people and place. She often works in clay-bodies of her own invention, as a strategy for exploring the animacy of matter.
White holds a BA, MA and BFA (Hons) and has studied in Australia, The Netherlands and the United States. An alumni of the European Keramic Work Centre and Ian Potter Cultural Trust, she has produced sculptural editions for local and international institutions. Recent projects include Speculative Materialisms, Craft and Design Canberra (2024); Soft Speech, McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery (2023); Tiny Wonders, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre (2022) and Unpredict: Imagining Future Ecologies, Ian Potter Museum (2022).
I work in a creative cycle of collapse and repair. Every test and ‘failure’ is carefully preserved and folded back into new sculptures…My personal hope is to articulate an ethic of care and reflect on the quality of artist-material relations and how this manifests in an artwork. Working in collaboration with matter requires a recognition of mutual interdependence. It is critical that we examine the way we think about and see materials.
/ Narelle White