Odette Ireland
Artist's Statement
Odette Ireland is a Sydney-based ceramic artist whose practice explores themes of connection and disconnection to place. Her work reflects a deeply personal engagement with the natural world and her evolving relationship to it. She creates both small and large-scale sculptural works (suspended, free-standing, and wall-mounted) using ceramics and mixed media. Each piece embodies a response to the environments she inhabits, offering poetic reflections on landscape, memory, and presence.
Ireland works with a variety of clays, including raku, stoneware, and porcelain, incorporating surface treatments and unconventional materials to add depth and complexity. Her sculptures are hand-built using techniques such as slip-casting, press-moulding, and slab construction.
Influenced by natural forms and inspired by the kinetic elegance of Alexander Calder’s mobiles, Ireland’s work often incorporates movement, drawing attention to balance, composition, and the quiet tensions between elements. Through unexpected material juxtapositions and subtle motion, her pieces invite contemplation of both form and the beauty inherent in the natural world.
Biography
Odette Ireland (b. 1963) holds an Advanced Diploma and Diploma in Ceramics from the Northern Sydney Institute TAFE, Hornsby Campus, where she recently continued her formal studies. She is a 2020 finalist in the McClelland Small Sculpture Award and has received the Barnes Products Prize (2011) and the Australian Bronze Prize (2007). Ireland has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions and has been a finalist in Sculpture in the Vineyards (2013), Sculpture at Sawmillers (2014), Artisans in the Gardens (2014 and 2018), and the North Sydney Art Prize (2017). Her solo exhibitions include Equilibrium 2023, Symphony of Balance 2021 at Curatorial+Co. and In My Nature at Incinerator Art Space. In 2020, she joined the stable of represented artists at Curatorial+Co.
