PRIMAVERA: YOUNG AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS, MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Primavera: Young Australian Artists

Sam Gold’s most ambitious body of work to date consists of ten ceramic sculptures of stoneware, porcelain, raku, and terracotta. Each challenged the artist in both scale and material; compounded by lockdowns and intermittent studio access, the works reflect this journey in their final form.

Delicate ripples of clay fold across the organic shapes, reminiscent of coral or termite mounds.  Their surface is marked by the artist’s repeated finger impressions, timestamping the connection between maker and material. Intricate crevasses within each work resemble the complexities of human physiology and experience; the clay body and the human body mimicking each other and learning their physical boundaries throughout the process.

Gold explains, ‘The body to me is this world of discovery that is talking to us constantly, our body is a safe place, a home, a really remarkable vessel of thousands of stories, our cells have memories and I suppose that is the very reason I choose clay as a material- its capacity to never forget- to always recall- to remember a push or a pull or a knock will always show, no matter how much you try to fix or conceal all is bared’.

Primavera: Young Australian Artists  is on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, from 26 November 2021 until 13 June 2022