Helen Fuller – Ceramics

June 20 – July 26

Exhibition Launch Saturday June 27 at 2pm

The hand built ceramic vessels are made in my backyard studio. The works are a response to the local urban landscape of Adelaide, South Australia traversed on my daily dog walks. I am attracted to found objects overlooked or discarded and incidental objects — fragments shaped by use rather than intention. These found forms, often irregular and incomplete, activate unconscious response and become my visual triggers. I collect seed pods/Australian flora/eucalyptus bark for reference of shape/colour/form. I sometimes use them as ‘stamps’ to ‘decorate’ the surface of the pot by pressing patterns into the drying clay as the vessel evolves.

I tend to begin the works with a ‘no-fixed’ plan or predetermined outcome. Instead, each piece evolves through the tactile process of handling the different clay bodies and allowing the material to lead the direction. The clay is worked intuitively, and the forms evolve in my hand building/making process. I am always open to new possibilities for this to happen. In this way, the works develop a life of their own. Decisions are made through touch as much as sight, and the final form is the result of an ongoing dialogue between material, memory, and sensual playing with the plasticity of the clay in my hands.

Play is central to this body of work. I am not interested in perfect forms or symmetry. The pieces resist refinement in the conventional sense; edges remain uneven, surfaces bear traces of handling, and proportions shift as the form asserts itself. These qualities reflect both the natural world that inspires them and a belief that their vitality lies in imperfection.

The finished works tend to possess an organic energy, almost a living presence. They suggest growth, erosion, and transformation rather than resolution. Some appear to lean, swell, or contract, as though caught mid-gesture. This sense of animation is an unintentional bonus, reflecting my interest in forms that feel emergent rather than complete.

At this stage of my practice, I am increasingly drawn to processes that allow uncertainty and responsiveness. These works are not statements of control but of attentiveness — to place, material, and to the quiet accumulation of experiences drawn from over the time passed. Together, this group form a contemplative assembling of vessels that speak of persistence, observation, and the ongoing potential for making new forms.

I am not good at remaking sameness… the law of chance speaks… sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing until I’m doing it. That is [1]‘out of the work, comes the work’

Helen Fuller

[1] Quote John CAGE

Helen Fuller (2) Instagram