Josephine Townsend
Ceramics
Associate Member
Josephine is a ceramic artist working out of her home studio in Canberra. She makes functional work, sculptural items and jewellery. She is inspired by the way that forms, shapes and patterns repeat infinitely and evolve in nature. Tree roots branch out in the same way that rivulets run, flames flicker and branches divide. Her forms are all made to be touched, with surfaces colours and curves that invite exploration.
One component of her work is printing photographs on her work, she has done tiled bathroom installations as well as printing images on her functional ware. She uses a combination of lithography, decals, mono prints, glazes and underglazes to layer colour, texture and imagery in her work.
Josephine has been engaged with ceramics for more than 20 years. She initially took some evening classes as professional development for her work as a high school/college art teacher. She quickly fell in love with clay and the infinite possibilities for experimentation with surface, colour and form that it offers as well as the opportunities it offers to make works of arts that can be used every day. In 2014 Josephine was able to leave full time employment and since then she has been building her ceramics practice.