Holly O'Meehan - 'Obvara Glazed Grecian Vase' (home057)

Ceramic Vase by Holly O'Meehan

DIMENSIONS: Approximately 12.5cm tall x 11cm dia.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Holly O’Meehan’s art practice explores the effects humans have on the environment, with more recent interrogations focusing on the colonial agricultural techniques that have been used for over a century on the natural environment with in the Great Southern and Southwest Regions of Western Australia. Strongly influenced by growing up on her families cropping and livestock farm, on land belonging to the Goreng people of the Nyoongar nation, she incorporates handmade clay and ceramic objects with found organic material and relevant discarded items, in order to develop speculative dystopic landscapes that question the higher-achy between humans and the environment. Her experimental practice results in the sculptures having a whimsical, creature-like presence; their playful and defensive structures seem to repel and beguile in equal measure. By appropriating natural forms in an attempt to highlight the beauty of the hidden and unassuming, and purposely making with slow, repetitive movements in a way that honours the time it takes the environment to both recover and flourish. Although O’Meehan’s work generally attempts to illustrate the beauty within the landscapes, the themes in her practice jump between optimism and pessimism. On one hand, hoping that one day the natural environment will be able to overcome its greatest competitor; humans. On the other hand, unable to see how it can ever recover from the irreversible destruction we have caused.

This item is available in Store at Midland Junction Arts Centre.