Kristen Burgham

Kristin Burgham is a Melbourne based ceramicist working with industrial ceramic production processes and found objects. Burgham works with discarded objects to explore and build on the narrative of both the abandoned object and evidence of its maker. Her hand built porcelain assemblages are imbued with colour, scale and memory. Her works acknowledge and reflect on industry and its social history.

Kristin Burgham has studied ceramics in Australia and Hong Kong and her work has been acquired by two major art institutions in Victoria for their public collections. She completed a BFA at RMIT in 2019 and won the RMIT Ceramics Association judges choice award in 2019. She had her first solo exhibition in 2021.

“Through found objects I reflect on the emotional value of objects. My practice explores production processes and anonymous makers. I map and cast objects in plaster to create moulds. The result is an empty imprint or memory in plaster that reveals voids, scars and junctions. Absence of material matter initiates a new narrative and clay remembers what is now invisible. The evolution of colour and tone changes during the process of production. The result is a narrative landscape of porcelain objects. My landscape reflects colours that soothe during fraught times. I clean and return the original objects to where I discovered them. This allows for the circulation of the object in whatever form it takes.”