Two concurrent exhibitions at Canberra Museum + Gallery (CMAG) – while being quite different – have a lovely synergy, and are a credit to the curator’s eye. Sharing the main gallery spaces at CMAG is the solo exhibition by Canberra-born, Brisbane-based artist, Bruce Reynolds, How Soon is Now?, and the exhibition Making a Creative Life, celebrating the lifelong partnership of Canberran artists, ceramicist Hiroe and designer Cornel Swen.
Charting the journey of the Swens from Kyoto (Japan) to Canberra, this is a sensitive and comprehensive exhibition of the much-loved identities in the Canberra art scene.
What is amazing about it, is that it is the first time that their work has been shown together at any scale, despite having contributed significantly to the landscape of ceramics in Australia.
The exhibition is presented across two galleries, with one exquisitely mapping out Hiroe’s work as ‘a chronology of sculptural form’. It begins with some of her earliest works made in Australia in 1970 – when most Australian women potters were working on the wheel largely as functional ware – and concludes with one of her most recent pieces, fired in her Queanbeyan studio in 2024.
Hiroe was a passionate advocate for women ceramists, both in Japan and Australia, as a teacher and maker. Taking in this vast history of making, one is witness to the incredible control she had of her medium – all her work was hand-built and then often incised, both abstract in form and pattern. To this day, the work looks energised, groundbreaking and fresh.
In the adjacent gallery, the creative pairing of Cornel and Hiroe is played out – a journey of them meeting in Japan, and finding their own identities in Australia. It’s curated by CMAG Senior Curator Virginia Rigney, who says: “Their journey reflects the universal quest for identity, belonging and recognition – a narrative that resonates deeply with our Canberra community.”
Cornel, originally from Rotterdam, was a graphic designer and produced classic mid-century designs for clients such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme and renowned architect Harry Seidler. Much of his graphic design work has not been exhibited before, and a suite of his batik paintings of Australian fauna are shown in a first. They sit in a grid along a rear wall.
Before Cornel’s death in 2022, Hiroe asked him if she could use these designs in a new body of work. Now in her 90s, they are the ultimate tribute of their creative life together.
Completing the exhibition is a central vitrine that maps out this creative partnership across photographs, exhibition catalogues and other archived materials – many of which were designed by Cornel.
It is a truly stunning exhibition for its presentation, and also a good eye opener to the oeuvre of work produced. The timing of this exhibition is particularly interesting as the National Gallery of Australia presents the work of Anne Dangar, another highly influential teacher somewhat overlooked until now.
Read: Exhibition review: Ethel Carrick and Anne Dangar, National Gallery of Australia
Rigney has created a really thoughtful gallery experience for viewers, pairing Hiroe and Cornel Swen with Bruce Reynolds’ works – which also reach back to past traditions of making, but pulled into the present with a highly individual lens.
His exhibition pairs cast plaster relief works with two-dimensional collaged works made from found linoleum from old houses. These are often collaged with photographic elements to “weave layers of memory and reflection“.
What this pulling of past and present together does is trigger the viewer’s thoughts – to the things overlooked in our crazy digital world, what we value and what we celebrate. It is not surprising to learn, from a video interview within the exhibition, that Reynolds was a resident artist at the prestigious British School in Rome. So many of the pieces play with architectural forms, and offer a nod to ancient relics, and yet are unquestionably contemporary.
Again, like the Swens, there are subtle conversations with memory, migration, time and finding one’s place in an ancient environment – whether it is informed by nature or the built landscape.
Complementing these two exhibitions is yet another small suite of works by emerging Canberra ceramicist, Nathan Nhan, in the corridor gallery display case. Nhan also draws on the material history of ceramics, describing his slumped pots as an autobiographical series – and ‘trophies’ of the self.
It is a full and generous offering of exhibitions at CMAG, and for any potter a must-see suite of works.
Bruce Reynolds: How Soon is Now?
Hiroe and Cornel Swen: Making a Creative Life
Nathan Nhan: That all just happened.
Canberra Museum + Gallery (CMAG)
Exhibitions showing 2 November 2024 – 16 March 2025
Bruce Reynolds exhibition will tour after CMAG.
Free.
