19 November – 20 December 2014
Lines, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne
Embracing form and void, translucence and opacity, line and light, Titania Henderson’s sculptural practice is characterised by the pursuit of pure perception. Inspired by her experience of the changing natural world and her delight in the orders and rhythms of language, calligraphy and architecture, she continually challenges us to ‘see’ beyond our habitual blindness, to appreciate the interrelationship of all things. Thus espousing a level of abstraction that emphasises the entire visual experience, her work bears strong artistic affinities with Mondrian and the de Stilj movement, and more recently, echoes of German sculptor, Gertrude Goldschmidt (known as ‘Gego’) who emigrated to Venezuela in 1939.
Like Gego, Henderson here shares an abiding preoccupation with the strength and purpose of ‘line’, powerfully highlighting its (in)stability and independence irrespective of the space it inhabits. The stable elements entail the sculpture itself, while the unstable consist of the constantly shifting shadows and any slight movement in her design due to the fragility of the medium. However, where her previous, exclusively bone china configurations poignantly resonate with the vulnerability of life (‘The Other’), the present also incorporate bronze to explore strength and solidarity, and thereby encourage meditations upon community, culture and the landscape. Structures loosely resembling cones, circles, crescents, ellipses, folds and scrolls typically juxtapose an outer layer of smooth or corrugated bronze with a super-fine interior form of either black French limoges porcelain or stained bone china. Encapsulating the visible and invisible, the individual and universal, Lines thus invites contemplation of the ideas, memories and mysteries which unite humanity, nature and the divine. At once delicate and powerful, it is an elegant embodiment indeed of Mondrian’s aspiration for an art that would ‘realise the internal life as well as the external life.’
Born in 1945 in Holland, Henderson arrived in Australia in 1956, and currently lives and works in Melbourne. In 2002, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) at RMIT, Melbourne, and subsequently studied Honours in Ceramics at RMIT in 2004. Among her various achievements, she has been a finalist in the prestigious Concorso Internazionale delle Ceramiche d‘Arte, Museum of International Ceramics, Faenza, Italy (2013 and 2005); Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Woollahra Municipal Council, Sydney (2014, 2012, 2009 and 2004); 9th International Ceramics Festival Mino, Japan (2011); Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, Deakin University Gallery, Melbourne (2009 and 2011); and won the Smorgon Steel Contemporary Art Prize Open Award, Melbourne (2004). She has also participated in significant solo and group exhibitions, including the Cicely and Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Awards, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2012); McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery Small Sculpture Fair (2012 and 2014); The Other, Karen Woodbury Gallery (2010); Look: New Perspectives on the Contemporary Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2008); and the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan (2008). Widely admired, her work features in numerous public collections both locally and abroad, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza, Italy; and Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan.
Veronica Angelatos
TITANIA HENDERSON 