Brisbane ceramicist Nicolette Johnson channels the surreal and the symmetrical in her assemblages—playful vessels shaped by post-lockdown intuition and ancient form.
The Brisbane-based ceramic artist, known for her symmetrical vessels and botanical symbolism, confronted the inertia of lockdown with a radical gesture: she gave herself permission to play. This artistic liberation manifested in a new body of work—assemblages that fuse sculptural freedom with ceramic discipline, softening the boundary between function and fantasy.
Johnson’s background in photographic art and social documentary still informs her gaze, though now it channels through stoneware. Working from her home studio, she hand-builds forms using a mix of wheel-throwing, coiling, and sculpting techniques. Her surfaces are studded with small surrealist tokens—snail shells, corkscrews, checkerboards—that transform the vessel from an object of utility into an artefact of imagination. These details are not decorative in the conventional sense; they act more like glyphs or ciphers, inviting interpretation while resisting resolution.
The sculptures recall Constructivist compositions in their formal logic, yet they carry the quiet absurdity of something dreamt rather than engineered. Each form feels like a relic from a parallel archaeology—one that values play as process, and whimsy as method. By scaling up her experimental miniatures into more commanding ceramic presences, Johnson turns introspective gestures into public declarations. Her vessels are no longer merely containers; they are compositions, performances, and provocations.
Most compelling is the tension between ancient and future in these works. Her re-imagined classical silhouettes are repeatedly interrupted by contemporary visual idioms—spirals that could be antennas, or checkerboards that suggest digital grids. The past is neither romanticized nor rejected; rather, it becomes material for sculptural speculation. In doing so, Johnson’s work destabilizes time itself, positioning the artefact as something simultaneously ancient and imminent.
“I often find that when I let myself play in the studio — to create something that’s purely for my own enjoyment — that’s when a turning point can happen. There is an urgency to getting the ideas out of my head and into existence.” — Nicolette Johnson
