River Mud Series I (2010)

This series of work was created in response to the local environment of Berowra and, later, Dangar Island. I moved to Dangar Island later in 2010 and started to explore the use of local materials in my work. The river mud is a thick, sticky black substance, high in iron oxide and much like a glaze in it's raw form. Although I didn't know it yet, this body of work set the scene for more than a decade of exploration of local materials and forms.

 

The internal glaze was developed to echo the green shades of the river and a variety of glazes were created of varying textures and colours. The sieved river mud was sprayed on the external raw clay to give it a rich red sheen  representative of the warmth and colour of the bush, the earth and the rocks. This was the start of an ongoing quest to represent the texture and colour of the river, the rocks and the natural environment.