JUZ KITSON

Juz Kitson lures her audience into an opulent garden and casts them out renewed: an encounter with her sublime installations provokes deeply affective responses, suggesting a form of contemporary shamanism at play within the gallery.

Kitson’s talismanic objects — memento mori meets animist fetish — combine the dexterous arts of ceramics, textiles and drawing with a strong sense of materialism and process. Overtly seductive, the works’ tension lies in resisting the conventions of crafts such as the throwing wheel and the plinth, both central to ceramic traditions. Bound with mystique and feminine power, Kitson’s suspended chimeras become both captivating and unnerving, touching gently on a raw, surrealist nerve.

A wanderer and gatherer, Sydney-born Kitson had, until the pandemic, divided her time between the South Coast of Australia and Jingdezhen, the ‘Ancient Porcelain City’ of China. While completing Honours in ceramics at the National Art School, Kitson’s ‘Formations of Silence’ was acquired by David Walsh for his Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania. Featured in The Museum of Contemporary Art’s Primavera 2013 and Art Dubai 2014, she was also included in the Adelaide Biennial 2016. She has been a finalist in numerous major prizes including the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award (2019), The Alice Prize (2018) and the Wynne Prize (2022, 2017). Kitson’s work is held in public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank, the Powerhouse Museum, the Wollongong Art Gallery, the Newcastle Art Gallery, the Bathurst Art Gallery and RMIT University, as well as in private collections in Australia, Germany and the UK.

Text courtesy The Art House Milton