Concrete Playground

The fifth recipient of Object Galleries Living Treasures title, Australian ceramicist Jeff Mincham is a craftsperson of the highest order. Since he first exhibited his work in 1976 at Adelaide's famous Jam Factory, Mincham has continued on with his dedicated practice for over three decades, working, exhibiting and experimenting with techniques and methodologies.

His practice, largely influenced by the ancient Japanese technique Raku which he has both taught and followed, depends on temperature and fire. Having worked with this method for near on two decades, Mincham, impressively, moved to another way of working in the mid 1990s, focussing on drawing from the local scenery. Having spent most of this time operating from a studio in the picturesque Adelaide Hills, it seems natural that his work should have come to evoke the landscape in which he dwells, ceramics being such an organic form of art.

Mincham's influential work in ceramics, with it's ferocious and delicate textures and assemblages of light and seasons, is being honoured with a traveling exhibition that starts its first of twelve locations at Sydney's Object Gallery. It is accompanied by a monograph of the artist's work, edited by Margot Osborne.

Jeff Mincham, A Good Strike, 2009. Photographer: Grant Hancock