Pulse

Michael Reid Clay is delighted to present Pulse by Jeannie Holker, who was awarded the highest honour for a ceramic artist at last year’s National Emerging Art Prize. Befitting the leafy environs of The Garden Gallery on the grounds of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden, Holker’s beautiful new series of large-scale ceramic sculptures invites fresh perspectives on how we relate to nature by plugging into the little-perceived frequencies that reverberate through the non-human world.

“Pulse is a collection that explores interspecies communication,” says the artist, who sculpts her scrolling, spiralling forms, fossil-like seedpods and totemic insect deities on a scale that conveys primordial heft and monumentality, albeit tempered by the weathered surfaces and nuanced effects wrought by the firing process.

“The ecosystems we inhabit are constantly exchanging information. Our capacity to perceive these interactions is shaped – and often limited – by our Umwelten: sensory frameworks and assumptions rooted in our own perspective. The living world emits a continuous pulse, a signal transmitted and received through an intricate web of sensory experiences.”

Guided by field research and beginning with drawings, photographs and found elements before letting her themes slowly coalesce, Holker describes her process as intuitive and driven by storytelling. “I embrace imperfections as part of the narrative,” she says. “Each piece captures a moment or idea made tangible through clay.”

Holker triumphed at NEAP 2024 with Giant Pill Millipede, which connected the evolutionary endurance of ancient, elemental forms with both the vicissitudes of her medium and a sense of human resilience in the face of hostile environments. She now returns with an ambitious body of work that similarly binds conceptual rigour with a sense of natural wonder.

“I hope my work opens a window into the deeper concepts that shape how we connect with the natural world,” says Holker. “I want viewers to feel renewed sense of wonder and appreciation for the complexity of life – its beauty, fragility and constant transformation.”

To discuss works from Pulse by Jeannie Holker, please email sophienolan@michaelreid.com.au