Articles - 12 August 2004
A Potters Landscape - Retrospective and recent ceramics
1974 - 2004
Prominent ceramist Jeff Mincham has worked from his Cherryville Studio in the Adelaide Hills for over 30 years. His working space provides him with vistas over misty valleys to delicate traceries of tree-line silhouettes on distant hillsides. The this natural environment coupled with his childhood memories of playing, hunting and sailing in the reed bordered lakeland of Milang in the south of the state has informed Jeff's work from the outset. His work also reflects the rich colours and rugged textures of the ancient escarpments of the north Flinders Ranges where he has repeatedly visited, often in the company of his uncle Hans Mincham a former teacher and officer with the SA Museum.
While the landscape prevails, Jeff's work is also the product of his sense of play and the challenge of experimenting with new and often risky techniques. These include spraying Copper Nitrate chemical solutions at high temperatures so that the fuming creates magical richly coloured surface patterns on the clay. This approach also provides for his painterly sensibility.
From the earliest time Jeff has enjoyed researching new clay bodies and glazes and testing material processes. As a postgraduate student with Les Blakebrough in Tasmania in the early 1970s, he used ash glazes and glazes from local rocks with local clay. Moving to salt glaze and Bennetts clays upon his return to SA he was also attracted by the "mad process" of shovelling salt into an oil fired kiln and even used salt from local salt swamps near Milang. His first exhibition in 1976 at the Jam Factory in Payneham and at Blackfriars Gallery in Glebe NSW in 1978 featured salt glazes.
Eschewing the local forms of "studio pottery" he nevertheless enjoyed the luscious glazes of the hobby range and continued to experiment with clay bodies and multiple firings. Prepared to grind back glazes not to his liking, since the early 1980s Jeff's main theme has been the diversity possible in Raku. An initial attraction was the "counter culture" art as performance attitude reflected in the drama associated with Raku processes (including lifting pots hot from the kiln into bins of combustible material) that were proselytised by US ceramist Paul Soldner and others in the 1970s. Jeff's interest however led to his increasing control of the process, something that was facilitated by the introduction of an electric kiln with a high temperature digital pyrometer.
As Head of the Ceramics Studio at the Jam Factory during the period 1979 - 83 Jeff imported white porcelain clay to SA, leading to new directions for many local potters. A series of elegant vessels and platters employing a lighter palette with watercolour like washes using engobe together with delicate incised surface decorations in the mould of Japanese calligraphy and paintings of nature appeared alongside his raku works.
Choosing clay that provides stability for sculptural work, Jeff has investigated both vessel and sculptural forms using raku; some grand in scale. Jeff's capacity to develop figurative sculptural work to address more conceptual issues is reflected in the series of the late 1990s that deals with the role of males in society. The complexity and struggle inherent in the ambivalent demands made on males is evident in Masked Man (1995) and The Male Role in Society (1995); tribe like requirements to don armour, even to fight to kill, are in conflict with simultaneous expectations to love, nurture and show compassion.
The constant variability deriving from experimenting with different clays, different kiln conditions and the spontaneity inherent in exploiting different surface treatments means Jeff's passion for turning clay towards his artistic sensibility is never sated. That his 1985 exhibition featuring his Neoteric Vessel series at Realities Gallery in Melbourne was sold out in one day was early testimony to the acceptance of his work in the "fine art" tradition. He has continued to experiment and has more recently developed wonderful vessels with strong colours of blue and russet that are evocative of the arid Australian landscape. His continued fascination and respect for the Japanese teabowl tradition drives him to pursue his own satisfaction with producing a teabowl.
Winning numerous prestigious awards in Australian NZ and elsewhere Jeff has a consistent trajectory of commitment to his craft that is reflected in his extensive exhibition history, invitations to judge awards and give masterclass demonstrations internationally since the 1980s. This exhibition featuring works from 1974-2004 provides a remarkable overview of the oeuvre of this prolific, energetic and highly regarded artist.
Curator- Janice Lally
A Potters Landscape was exhibited at the JamFactory in Adelaide in September, 2004
