Jenny and Gwyn are two contemporary Australian

ceramicists. Although both women use clay they work

in vastly different ways and have different intentions
and aims.

Jenny Orchard is an Australian practising artist who makes ceramic

sculptures comprising vibrant and charismatic multi-species forms of the
spiritual and genetically modified world in which we live in. Gwyn Hansen
Piggott is an Australian born ceramic artist, inspired by the paintings of
the Italian twentieth century artist Georgic Morandi, to create three-
dimensional porcelain vessels. There are many differences and similarities
between the practice making of both artists Jenny Orchard and Gwyn
Hansen Piggott, since both artists convey their style, technique,
intentions, movement and influences in a very diverse way. These
differences as well as similarities can be viewed when looking at their
artworks Bluey (2010) and Blue Rosey (2007) by Jenny Orchard and
Three Coloured Bowls (2010) and Clusters with Mauve bowl
(2010) by Gwyn Hanssen Pigott. Both ceramicist use clay as their media,
to convey their artistic style, technique, subject matter, intentions, art
movements and world influences in a very distinctive way when compared
to each other.

Jenny Orchard was born in Turkey in 1951 and grew up in Zimbabwe. She
was influenced by the beliefs of the tribal Shona people in her childhood.
The Shona is the name collectively given to several groups of people in
Zimbabwe. The Shona believe in vadzimu (an invisible community within
the community of the living, always around their descendants, caring for
them and participating in their joys and sorrows). Orchard has had a
career in ceramics, sculpture and art making since 1980. After
immigrating to Australia in 1975, she studied at the College of Fine Arts in
Sydney, receiving her Bachelor of Arts in 1980.

Gwyn Hanssen Pigott was born in Ballarat, Victoria in 1935. She became
interested in pottery while studying Fine Arts at the University of
Melbourne. From 1955 to 1958 she then spent the next 15 years in
England, then in France, before returning to Australia in 1973 and working
in Tasmania, South Australia, and then Queensland, where she is currently
based. In the 15 years she was overseas she had worked with master
potters. During a visit to Paris in 1971 that Hanssen Pigott had a defining
experience, she saw the retrospective exhibition of Giorgio Morandi, an
artist she did not know. Hanseen Pigott was awarded an Order of Australia
in 2002 for her contribution to the field of ceramics.

Using earthenware clay and a variety of vividly coloured glazes, Jenny

Orchard brings to life her mythological, hybrid creatures in her art making.
This can be seen in two of her artworks Bluey (2010) and Blue
 Jenny and Gwyn are two contemporary Australian
ceramicists. Although both women use clay they work
in vastly different ways and have different intentions
and aims.

Rosey (2007). Both sculptures are a combination of plants, animals and

people to generate ceramic art that challenges imagination of the world
surrounding genetically modified multispecies. Blue Roesy is an example
of what Orchard calls a Plant person, which portrays a monster like
creature resembling a woman with one eye and puckered up, red lips with
blue roses covering her body and with one wolf-like leg. She uses inky blue
and snow white colours to give life to her monsters and usually tries to
make the feet of the creature a salient image, to collaborate emphasis of
the artwork. The second artwork of Orchard is Bluey which resembles a
Plant person, displaying a morph like organic human like mixture with
multiple eyes, two hands on the face, a cactus like neck and use of
organic three-dimensional shapes in the lower body with crab-like pincers.
Her use of foliage colours such as blues and greens uses the idea of rich
animistic and vegetative embodiments of the Earth. Her influences from
Zimbabwes cultural tradition and her intentions of mechanism of living
things in this world establishes the Post-Modern framework to the present
day Post-Natural as she continues to explore a personal cosmology of
contemporary and historical diversity and belief.

In her early work, in the 1950s through the 1970s, Hanssen Pigott focused
on producing practical ceramic wares. Her influences from the Song
Dynasty wares show early as she was working with McMeekin in the
1950s, which was also heavily influenced by the work from the Song
Dynasty. In terms of the work, its quite evident that her vessels are
absolutely flawless in their form, with outstanding style of imperfection.
This can be seen in two of her artworks Three Coloured Bowls and
Clusters with Mauve bowl. Three Coloured Bowls by Pigott
dispalys three, violet bowls made from translucent porcelain presenting
both Asian and European style, and the traditions of wood-fired ceramics.
Her flawlessness and the glaze covering the three bowls depicts cultural
conventions of historical China, she had been studying for years, as well
as Post-modern from her influence of Morandis artworks. Pigotts second
artwork Clusters with Mauve bowl looks at the effect of the pure, white
which is quite powerful when she has clustered her bottles, bowls and
cups together. In Hanssen Pigotts pottery, you can see a heavy influence
of specifically the Northern Song Dynasty wares of China. The Northern
Song wares concentrated on the meditative qualities of form. Glazing was
rich in color, but decoration on the surfaces was minimal. The decoration
that was used was delicate and restrained.
 Jenny and Gwyn are two contemporary Australian
ceramicists. Although both women use clay they work
in vastly different ways and have different intentions
and aims.

In contrast to the two ceramicists, both Orchard and Pigott have

similarities and differences between each other. Both artists choose to use
clay to convey their cultural and post-modern ideas currently and
emphasis their purpose by expressing it through their art making.
However, both artists have completely different intentions on what they
are portraying to the audience. Orchards strange figurative compositions,
others assembled and skewered on central supporting steel shafts,
reaching back to the lush origins of ceramic craft and folkloric, magical
and decorative traditions, tells us the different ideas, techniques and the
aims of her art making when compared to Piggotts. On the other hand,
Pigotts work with knowledge of recent art history, and none at all of her
journey, her work is much more suggestive of the modernist movement
than of its beginnings in a love for Song Dynasty ceramics. Her use of
media of porcelain, her influences from Morandi and her style and
intentions of clusters of bowls, bottles and cups differentiates from
Orchards hybrid, morph like creatures, since Orchard uses her spiritual
and cultural imagination. The colours and techniques of both artists are
different, since Pigott uses wood-fired procelin and glazes, whereas
Orchard uses cermaic, resin and steel in her sculptures.

In conclusion, there are many similarities and differences between the two
clay artist Jenny Orchard and Gwen Hanssen Pigott, in relation to their
method, style, media, influences and the purpose of their art making.
Jenny Orchard uses risks in genetic engineering and technological
exploitation of belonging to a world in another dimension. On the other
hand, Gwen Hanssen Pigott utilises the Postmodern era into her own
artworks, as well as Morandis paintings which may suggest the duration,
interval, repetition and variation, and also a musical interpretation of her
pots.