Artist in Focus: Cassie Hansen
We’re so thrilled to present Scale and Assembly, a new body of work by Victorian artist Cassie Hansen. Exploring architectural materiality and composition, Hansen deviates from her usual practice to create wall mounted clay tablets, drawing inspiration from the ancient artefacts used to write stories, poetry and fables, and record events and laws in ancient times.
Scroll below to see the work or read more in our conversation with Hansen on the Journal.
Dates:
26 May - 9 June, 2022
Location:
Online and in store, Wurundjeri, 311 Smith St, Fitzroy.
Cassie Hansen is a ceramicist working on Taungurung country (Kyneton), creating midfire and stoneware vessels, jugs and objects. Her work is inspired by the simplified forms and linear qualities of architecture and the built environment, as well as the shadows and compositions captured in architectural photography.
In this series, Hansen explores clay left unglazed in order to emphasise the textures and graphic shapes, as well as reference the unfired nature of the ancient clay tablets.
Building materials – tiles, wall panels and hardware – are used to create the textures, bringing an added layer of architectural language to the pieces. The shapes – an assemblage of quadrants, curves and arcs – resemble site plans for elaborate villages, or can be read as the collection of material palettes used by architects and designers.
These present-day artefacts record architectural messages – messages of scale and assembly, texture and shape, composition and form – intended to be preserved forever.
As the editor of design magazine Artichoke, Hansen draws on more than a decade of experience writing about, editing and looking critically at design, architecture and interiors. She began ceramics in 2016, and in 2018 spent a year learning from renowned ceramicists Neville French and Kate Jones at Shane Kent’s Melbourne-based ceramics school, the School of Clay and Art (SoCA).
In 2019 she set up her home studio in Kyneton and since then has been developing her practice, creating a library of her own glazes, as well as clays and techniques.
We look forward to welcoming Cassie Hansen as our latest Artist in Focus. You will find all the works below and proudly displayed in our showroom from 26 May.
