Challenging clay at Hastings City Art Gallery

Five ceramics artists have come together in the style of the 1980 ceramics exhibition that was hailed at the time as challenging the traditions art and craft divide.

Five by Five: New Conversations with Clay, installed this week in the Hastings City Art Gallery, was curated by one of the artists who participated in that original exhibition 35 years ago: John Parker.

Back in 1980, Denis Cohn Gallery in Auckland hosted an exhibition of five artists who each showed five works.

The artists — Bronwyn Cornish, Peter Hawkesby, Denis O’Connor, John Parker and Warren Tippet — wanted to abandon convention and approach ceramics differently to that taken by craft potters, who made household items that could be used.

The works the five showed were non-functional and influenced by a range of philosophies and working processes.

As the title suggests, Five by Five: New Conversations with Clay again features five works from five artists who experiment on the fringes of ceramic practice: this time Kate Fitzharris, Tessa Laird, Kate Newby, Louise Rive and Suji Park.

Five by Five: New Conversations with Clay, now until August 26, Hastings City Art Gallery; Entry is free.

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