Pippin Drysdale

Ochre Pit Series I

about the artwork

Continuing the diversity and inclusion series which runs throughout the building, internationally renowned Western Australian ceramicist Pippin Drysdale’s Ochre Pit Series I echoes the striking colour variations of ochres; from the creamy whites and pastel pinks of Greater Perth to the mustard yellows, bright oranges to deep reds, and their soft nuanced purple shadows of the Pilbara deserts. The silky surfaces of the 17 individual marbles are linked by fine white lines incised into the porcelain and grouped together as a landscape.

artist statement

“It was on a study tour to Central Australia that I visited the Ochre Pits. I was overwhelmed by their amazing colours and understood how precious and vulnerable these ochres are. I have never taken photographs of my travels but have absorbed qualities and characteristics through my mind and eyes and stored these impressions in my memory. All these years later, I was thrilled to recall this phenomenon and to respond to this landscape by creating a suite of porcelain sculptures that are true to my memories.”

about the artist

Pippin Drysdale
Born Naarm | Melbourne, Victoria
Lives and works Boorloo | Perth

Born in 1943, Pippin Drysdale has been working in the same studio in Fremantle for over 45 years. As the “foremost interpreter of the Australian landscape in the field of ceramics”, Drysdale’s exquisite works are the result of endless experimentation with colour, line and shape, reflecting the remote and grandiose geology of the famous Kimberley or Pilbara regions, as well as her keen interest in Australia’s First Nation peoples. Through her lavish use of colour and her precision of line, she distills the vast and varied landscape, as well as its flora and its fauna, into her ceramic forms.

In 2015, Pippin Drysdale was honoured by the Government as a State Living Treasure. These distinguished honours are offered to artists whose artistic achievements merit exceptional recognition and whose contribution to the State offers an ongoing unequalled legacy. Additionally, in 2020 she was the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from Curtin University, where she also has the distinction of a retrospective exhibition.