Transference: Jo Victoria

glass and porcelain sculpture detail

You can almost smell the salty air as you encounter the work of South Coast-based artist Jo Victoria in her recent collaborative show, ‘Transference’ which she shares with Canberra-based artist, Robyn Campbell. Cleverly exploiting the seductive qualities of glass and porcelain, Victoria’s new work evokes the dancing of light across water, bleached fossils and broken shells, suggesting both fragility and transience.

Based in Mossy Point, NSW, Victoria worked as an anthropologist and archaeologist for many years before returning to the Australian National University School of Art to study ceramics. Since graduating in 2016, Victoria has been creating works that explore stories of place where the evidence of the interactions between nature and culture can be revealed.

The title of the exhibition, ‘Transference’, speaks both to the process Victoria employs in creating the work where organic material is burnt away during the firing process leaving traces and fragments of visual information, and of the collaborative approach the artists have taken in developing this new body of work.

Victoria reflects, "The collaborative opportunity to share skills and material knowledge with glass artist, Robyn Campbell, has been a luxurious and stimulating creative process that has extended both our practices beyond what we could have achieved individually. Our love of the purity of glass and porcelain and their respective interactions with light has been the platform to push our art practices to new and exciting possibilities.”

Although visitors cannot physically visit the gallery, the exhibition can be enjoyed online on the Craft ACT website and social media platforms. A beautiful online catalogue features essays, artist reflections and biographies, photographs and a complete list of works. Most of the works in the exhibition are available for purchase, and artist interviews and video tours simulate the gallery experience.

Image: Ocean #15 (detail), 2020 slumped glass, cast porcelain, slipcast, carved, pierced porcelain. Photo: Brenton McGeachie