THE PRESENCE OF FORM… arresting beauty and stillness

Amy Cohen, Amy Kennedy, Kevin Boyd, Sarah Ormonde

November / December 2026

Skepsi Gallery

Exhibition can be viewed in person: November 13 to 21, 2026

Exhibition Location: Malvern Artists’ Society Gallery, 1297 High Street, Malvern, Victoria

Skepsi Gallery Hours: every day between 11.00 am and 5.30 pm from November 14 to 21

AMY COHEN

I invite you to think of shells differently, beyond their aesthetic wonder.

They are formed over years by molluscs, soft-bodied invertebrate animals that build their shells around themselves throughout their lives.

The materials of marine life, including the formation of shells, form the foundations of our civilisation – the sandstone, chalk, calcium and other minerals that our development is founded upon. Clay performs a similar function, and in my artist practice I intuitively, instinctively coil-build my forms, constructing variations of my own protective shell.

AMY KENNEDY

In these forms, I aim to capture a sense of unfurling - a feeling of life within stillness.

KEVIN BOYD

As with all artistry, continuity and change distinguish my practice. 
A career long interest in combining decorative effects of clay slips and glazes with simple forms is still evolving into an increasingly satisfying outcome. 

KENJI URANISHI

‘Through the Clouds’ explores the spaces between the earth, the sky and the world beyond. The shifting nature of clouds creates fleeting moments of beauty, as they reveal and conceal what lies beyond. The series draws on memories of places, imagined worlds and the changing light between day and night.
Working with clay, glaze and the heat of the kiln constantly brings an element of surprise, as the materials can change in unexpected ways during firing. Variations in the thickness of the clear satin-matt glaze create different shades and textures in the blue pigment, while firing can cause some slab-built forms to swell or shift.
These unexpected outcomes become part of the work, reminding us that our environment is constantly changing and that we are one small part of something much larger.

JOHN DALY

I grew up watching my parents work clay, amongst a landscape of remnant ecologies and altered agricultural land on Wiradjuri Country in Central West NSW. That landscape taught me to always look closer, to read the passage of time, to see the changes that have happened, and the potential for broken things to be transformed into something with a future. A science degree in geology gave me a second language with which to describe these instinctual observations, a new understanding of how matter moves and changes state. An understanding that eventually drew me back to clay.

But a growing unease around the use of virgin materials pulled me towards the broken things, and now my materials of choice are those that others have discarded, brought back into use rather than left to become waste. A broken window. An empty champagne bottle. Both are crushed to a powder and fired back into glaze, as the glass briefly remembers its liquid nature. Bronze dust, salvaged from the waste bins of a Slovenian foundry during a recent symposium, is allowed to express its colourful chemistry as the copper it contains is returned to its elemental state by the reducing atmosphere of the kiln.

Throughout these explorations I have found myself preoccupied with the movement of light. Diffusing over the ceramic surface, reflecting off the metallic glaze, and transmitting through the imperfections of fused recycled glass. It seemed only natural that the ceramic form, synonymous with a vessel that holds the nourishment of food and drink, should become a vessel for light as well. And perhaps for ideas. The idea that no matter how broken, there is always the potential for a future.

ELEVATE… matter and concept

Joanne Searle, Colin Hopkins, Kenji Uranishi, John Daly

August / September 2026

Skepsi Gallery

Photographers: Art Atelier Photography, and Artists.