Honor Freeman: All that was solid is liquid is on view at Sabbia Gallery, Sydney
October 2-26, 2024
Sabbia Gallery is pleased to present this solo exhibition of new ceramic works by Honor Freeman.
Honor Freeman is an artist living and working in the Fleurieu Peninsula on the traditional lands of the Ngarrindjeri/Ramindjeri people in South Australia. Her practice utilises the mimetic properties of porcelain, crafting objects that belie their materiality and purpose.
Freeman completed her studies in 2001 at the South Australian School of Art. Following graduation, Honor took up an Associate position and Tenant residency in the ceramics studio at JamFactory Craft & Design. Her work has been curated into major exhibitions at institutions throughout Australia, including the MCA, Tarrawarra Museum of Art and The PowerHouse Museum. She has undertaken international residencies at Guldagergaard, Denmark’s International Ceramic Museum and in the US at Indiana University’s School of Art & Design. In 2006, Freeman traveled to Chile to exhibit and participate in The South Project, continuing her project on/off/on, installing porcelain light switches and powerpoints clandestinely in public spaces. In 2018 she was invited to undertake the Guildhouse Collections Project at the Art Gallery of South Australia, the outcome of this residency Ghost Objects, was exhibited in 2019 as part of SALA Festival.
Her work has appeared in national and international publications, including 1001 Remarkable Objects published by the Powerhouse Museum; 101 Contemporary Australian Artists, published by the NGV; Earth & Fire: modern potters, their tools, techniques and practices by Kylie and Tiffany Johnson; the international publication by Louisa Taylor, Ceramics Masterclass: creative techniques of 100 great artists; and Glenn Barkley’s recently published Ceramics: An Atlas of Forms.
Exhibiting since 2000, Honor’s work is represented in numerous public institution collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia, ArtBank, The powerhouse Museum and Washington DC’s National Musuem of Women in the Arts. In 2023, Freeman was a recipient of an Arts South Australia Fellowship.
Clay is a material embodying both control and chaos.
Ideas of containment occupy the making and embrace clay’s capricious nature in this new suite of work. All that was solid is liquid plays with ruptures, leaks, and growths, highlighting the tensions between material dualities: soft/hard, beautiful/ugly, fragile/durable, liquid/solid.
Ordinary and seemingly insignificant items intimately connected with the body—chewing gum, soap, towels, pillows, hot water bottles—are cast in porcelain and transformed, becoming strange souvenirs and nostalgic relics from the domestic landscape. These ubiquitous objects, caught between discarded beauty and unsettling decay, reflect their leaking and rupturing states.
Honor Freeman, 2024
Contact
gallery@sabbiagallery.com
Sabbia Gallery
609 Elizabeth Street
Redfern Sydney NSW 2016
Australia
Images courtesy of Sabbia Gallery
