Big Ceramic Energy

3 August 2024 – 2 February 2025

Curated from the SAM Collection, Big Ceramic Energy presents a selection of Australian, First Nations, and international contemporary artists whose creative practices push the boundaries of the ceramic medium.

The artworks featured in this exhibition are drawn from the museum’s dynamic collection, which has expanded and developed through donations, bequests, select acquisitions and curatorial commissions, as well as special acquisitions from past editions of the Sidney Myer Ceramic Award and Indigenous Ceramic Award.

From eccentric forms to experimental glazes, this grouping of highly individual artworks exude a shared boldness of character, with each work expressing the artists’ unique techniques and approaches to the medium.

Through artworks from Jenny Orchard, Bankstown Koori Elders Group, Stephen Bowers, and more, Big Ceramic Energy celebrates the artists in our collection who redefine the boundaries of scale, form, and feeling.

Image: Jenny Orchard, Durian Head and Choko Nose (c. 2007), Shepparton Art Museum Collection, acquired as the winner of the 2017 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, 2017 © Jenny Orchard. Photo: Christian Capurro. 

Location: Lin Onus Gallery, Level 1

Free

Exhibition supporters

Government Partners

Greater Shepparton City Council

Creative Victoria

SAM operates on the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta people. The SAM Building, and art museum within it, is located on river country close to the Goulburn River, known as Kaiela to the Yorta Yorta.

SAM recognises the Yorta Yorta as the traditional owners and ongoing custodians of the lands and water of the Country upon which SAM is built, and that sovereignty of this land has never been ceded.