Whanganui artists win Portage merit awards

Andrea Du Chatenier's Celestial Forest.

Whanganui artists Andrea du Chatenier and Rick Rudd have won merit awards in the 2018 Portage Ceramic Awards.

The awards were presented by guest judge Los Angeles artist Bari Ziperstein at a ceremony at West Auckland's Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery.

Du Chatenier had just returned to New Zealand from the Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Centre in Denmark, where she had taken up an artist residency won at last year's Portage Ceramic Awards.

In describing her latest work, Celestial Forest, du Chatenier says, "I've been thinking about scholars' rocks, the Chinese tradition of selecting rocks that mimic aspects of the natural world and operate as objects of contemplation.

"My current series offers a contemporary version of these rocks, which present a world in a state of flux, unstable and full of contradictions; much less Mother Nature, much more psychedelic disco."

Ziperstein says that du Chatenier's "dripping visceral worlds use a combination of armatures and pattern with her delicately controlled failures – they show me
an undertone of sculptural rigour".

Before leaving for Denmark Du Chatenier received news she was the recipient of another award - the Wallace Arts Trust Vermont Award for her work Untitled (Celestial Blue Cave Drawing).

The judges said her porcelain and earthenware piece was "a little bit magic, fragile and gutsy all at once".

Rudd is a well known senior potter who has been working in New Zealand since 1973.

He opened the Quartz Museum of Studio Ceramics in Whanganui in 2015 through his charitable trust, The Rick Rudd Foundation.

Of his ongoing work, Rudd simply says. "I take the teapot for inspiration and interpret it through form."

Like du Chatenier, he had two entries shortlisted for the awards – both simply titled Teapot.

Rick Rudd's winning work Teapot

Ziperstein says, "Rick's clean, undulating and controlled form has a master's quality of historical nods with just the right amount of humour at this domestic scale. I imagine a whole house designed from this perspective, and how it could be a catalyst for how we live our lives."

Established in 2001, the annual Portage Ceramic Awards are New Zealand's best-known survey of contemporary ceramic activity.