And the finalists are...congratulations to:

Dave Austin    
Debbie Barber    
Kathaleen Bartha     
Robert Carter        
Darryl Frost    
Graham Hay    
Dani Henke    
Sue Heydon    
Evelyn Hodowany    
Julia Holden    
Stevei Houkāmau    
Elise Johnston    
Chuck Joseph     
Tracy Keith    
Fran Maguire    
Charles McGowan    
Greta Menzies    
Holly Rose Morgan    
Jess Nicholson   
Lena Ochkalova    
Aidan Rail    
Rick Rudd    
Sue Scobie    
Riccardo Scott    
Liz  Sharek    
Sylvia Sinel    
Snook  Z 
Richard, Stratton    
Janna Van Hasselt    
Greg Yee      

Arts Council Nelson and Forsyth Barr are thrilled to invite everyone to  Pushing Clay  – Forsyth Barr Ceramics Award & Exhibition  2024

An exciting opportunity for artists to stretch the boundaries of clay practice and challenge the more traditional views of this medium. Artists who work solely with clay, or clay as their main raw material in their mixed media practice, are invited to use any technique of their choice to create two or three-dimensional pieces.

With a top prize of $8,000 and two cash prizes of $1000 for runners up generously sponsored by Forsyth Barr, Pushing Clay 2024   hopes again to invigorate practitioners to push the limits, push their practice and innovate. ​

Welcome to this year's Judges...

Aaron Scythe

Aaron has studied many aspects of the Japanese Mino style of pots including Oribe, Kizeto and Hikidashi techniques and shino glazes. Greatly influencing the philosophical approach and techniques which can be seen in his work today. Aaron’s current work reflects both his New Zealand and Māori heritage. During the sixteen years he lived in Japan he had over sixty solo exhibitions and since his return to New Zealand Aaron has continued to exhibit in Japan as well as exhibiting in this country, the UK, and USA. With his work being widely collected worldwide. 

Aaron Scythe was born in Auckland and after leaving school in 1986 became a slip-caster at Halls Industries, making mainly ceramic lampshades.  In 1998 he began a Craft Design course at Carrington Polytechnic and a year later went to Sydney to study at East Sydney Tech Ceramic School.
He moved to Sturt Craft Centre, Mittagong, NSW in 1993 for work and self-directed study.  While there he built and fired an anagama (wood-fired) kiln, also spending short periods in Dubbo, NSW.
​
In 1995 he first visited Japan for further study and in 1997 rented a studio in Mashiko, building a second anagama kiln.  He established a permanent studio in Mashiko in 2006 and built a third wood-fired kiln, but following the Fukushima meltdown in 2011 Aaron, his Japanese wife, Soari and their two children came to New Zealand to live.  He set up a studio in Te Aroha in 2012, moving to Whanganui in 2014 where he is currently living and potting. 

Heather Galbraith


​Heather Galbraith is a contemporary art curator, writer, and Professor of Fine Arts, College of Creative Arts Toi Rauwhārangi in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington. She makes exhibitions, writes about art, and is regularly invited to sit on advisory boards and selection committees.

Heather has been involved in senior roles in three presentations of the New Zealand pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2009, 2013, and 2015) she has held senior curator roles at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, and was the inaugural director/curator of ST Paul St., AUT University. Heather spent twelve years based in London where she undertook postgraduate studies in curatorial practice at Goldsmiths College London, and worked as Exhibitions Organiser at Camden Arts Centre. She was the Managing Curator of SCAPE Public Art in Ōtautahi/Christchurch in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

​Currently she is working with eight makers from Aotearoa and Australia on Deep Material Energy, a suite of contemporary jewellery craft/object exhibitions and eventswww.deepmaterialenergy.com  in Australia and Aotearoa. She is Chair of Contemporary HUM Arts Trust, the governance structure of www.contemporaryHUM.com an online platform for commissioned writing about New Zealand visual arts presented internationally, and a Board Member of Experience Wellington.
Background Image: Total Flop | Janna Van Hasselt, Finalist 2022

Our generous selectors...with the toughest job

Josephine Cachemaille
Josephine Cachemaille makes paintings, objects and assemblages.  She is interested in the liveliness of materials and her work seeks to increase our sensitivity to the needs of, and communications from, the non-human world around us. Her practice is an important site to explicitly hope and be optimistic; to cope with the anxieties of living in the current era; and to form attachments and connections - with humans and non-human materials alike.

Josephine has won several significant national art awards and had multiple solo and public exhibitions nationally and internationally, including representing New Zealand at the Beijing Biennale 2019.  Josephine has a post graduate diploma in Fine Art and a degree in Psychology. She lives in Whakatū Nelson with her husband, music journalist Grant Smithies.
​Gill Starling
​Gill Starling is the co-owner and director of Quiet Dog Gallery in Nelson: a dealer gallery that specialises in fine art by local and national artists.  A number of ceramicists are represented by the gallery including Aaron Scythe, Steve Fullmer & Yvonne Guillot. 

Last year Gill had the chance to spend a couple of nights at the Grayson Perry art project ‘A House for Essex’ in the UK.  She says that living with Perry’s ceramics and tapestries everywhere you looked felt like being inside an artist’s imagination.  Incredible! 
​Thomas Baker
​Thomas Baker is an artist primarily working in clay. After achieving his bachelor of fine arts (hons) from Wellington Massey university, Thomas went on to  study ceramics under Seppou Iida at Hokutoh studio in Japan. Currently residing in Nelson, where he co-owns Kiln a ceramic studio and ceramics gallery, Hot Clay. ​
Forsyth Barr is proud to sponsor the PUSHING CLAY - Forsyth Barr Contemporary Ceramics  Award 2024. Our local team of advisers and support staff are delighted to support the festival and its artists through our sponsorship of the Supreme Award. We are passionate about the arts and the buzz which Clay Week will bring to Nelson. As a New Zealand-owned and operated firm for over 85 years we have been helping New Zealanders invest in their future. Throughout this time, we have been very proud of the support we have been able to provide our local communities. We look forward to congratulating the winning artist on their achievement when presenting the Forsyth Barr Ceramics Award, and celebrating the art of ceramics through the many activations and events happening across the week.

CATALOGUE  2022