Gwyn Hanssen Pigott is one of Australia's best-known and respected ceramic artists. Renowned for the abstract simplicity of her off-white porcelain pots her work is at the forefront of fine art pottery. During a career spanning fifty years, Hanssen Pigott has worked with many significant potters, including a period of collaboration with Bernard Leach at St Ives in the mid 1960s. Motivated by the Leach philosophy, the modernist forms of Hans Cooper and the still-life paintings of Giorgio Morandi, the physical and psychological potential of the pot is at the root of Hanssen Pigott's work. Since the 1980s she has evolved 'inseparable' groups of translucent porcelain forms which create a dynamic with one another and the viewer. Transcending the traditional still-life, the fragility and ultimate fate of these groups poignantly highlight the transitory nature of life itself. The essay by Emmanuel Cooper highlights the work of Hanssen Pigott on her celebrated return to St Ives since the 1960s.
