In Narrm/Melbourne-based artist Charlotte Watson’s new exhibition of ceramic artworks Awash, organic porcelain forms emerge from an intuitive response to making art in the context of new motherhood. Watson finds beauty and delight within the interplay of weight, selective colour and cast shadows. Awash opens 5.30–7pm 21 April and runs through to 18 May 2026. Ahead of this she responded to questions from City Art Reader editor Cameron Ralston.
Use your words, porcelain & lustre, 125x245x230mm, 2025
Cameron Ralston: How has your practice changed since you last exhibited with us in 2022? What are the dynamics and motivations behind this new body of work ‘Awash’?
Charlotte Watson: My practice has changed significantly in the last few years. In 2023 I had a large installation here in Melbourne, which was a huge achievement but wiped me out physically, financially and emotionally. A few months later I moved my studio to home.
A year later, my partner and I had a baby girl. While I was pregnant I lost all creative motivation and wondered if I would make art ever again. At the end I went quite overdue and began to make work in the studio to pass the anxious days waiting. I started what would become this series, just making with clay from my mind. Having no concept, no prior drawings and no theme is very different from my usual approach, but I found it liberating.
This ‘hands on, mind off’ developed as way to stay sane for the 8 or 9 months where I only slept for 3-4 hours a time. I was losing the plot, as you would expect from extended sleep deprivation, and very time-poor as any new mum would be. I simply didn’t (and still don’t) have the head space to consider overarching ideas. I just get 30 mins or so at a time to work. These works emerged from that incremental approach and, to my mind, reflect the porousness of those early months.
You have previously created animals in ceramics; these pieces share a similar soft organic bodily type of visual language without being so obvious what they are. Are these purely abstract or do they speak to the natural world still?
People say they look like coral, which I don’t mind. But I see them more as a state of mind than representing anything in particular. I suppose the first works were referencing a strange seaweed (name unknown) that is in the rock pools near Point Lonsdale here in Victoria. I spent as much time as I could in the water while pregnant, and relished being able to go snorkelling again after she was born. Beyond that, the forms are completely abstract, made up on the fly.
Soon to be three, porcelain & lustre, 165x220x110mm, 2025
These works appear as vessels. They offer different playful vantages, ways to look through and into them. Clearly objects of visual pleasure, do you also see them having practical purpose, a holding or presenting function? Perhaps there is some bias towards that thinking because of their materiality.
Certainly the early ones were intended to be vases – one of the first ones sits in my daughter’s room. But I’m not terribly interested in functionality, so they became more and more sculptural. I’d start with a base shape, then coil-build the porcelain from there. I allowed the plasticity of the porcelain to inform the shapes – it’s a bit like sculpting with toothpaste. So I was as much responding to the material as anything. Toward the end I let go of even the base, and just let the coils build up in whatever way.
Does your exhibition title Awash reflect your connection to the water?
Yes, definitely. But also the rush of emotions that come at you after a baby is born; the joy at this new little person, the profound fatigue, the roller coaster of hormones …and even the tide of unsolicited advice from everyone around you. I felt close to overwhelmment in that first year. I was not necessarily struggling, but more treading water.
Do you find any catharsis in making art? Some reward or satisfaction? Does sculpting have a particularly different feel to drawing or printmaking?
Art is definitely cathartic for me, and this series in particular was an exercise in that. It kept me sane.
In my practice, sculpture has always felt like the reverse of drawing or printmaking. Usually I have the end result in mind and work backwards to figure out the steps to make it happen. Drawing and printmaking felt more responsive, intuitive and I worked with what was happening on the page. I hadn’t considered until your question, but this series is a break from my norm. I realise I have taken the intuitive response and applied it to the sculptural process instead.
The moon, unfolded, porcelain & lustre, 95x235x185mm, 2026
It takes skill and confidence as an artist and craftsperson to continue to make the ceramic talk the way you have while riding the waves life is throwing at you. Despite not having an overarching theme or headspace to be concerned with that, what has arrived in our gallery has, to me at least, a kind of emergent quality – the work reflecting a personal state of being and process of discovery. Which in itself is theme enough right?
I hadn’t thought of it as a form of confidence – that’s kind of you to say! I suppose like much of my previous work it is a snapshot of where I am at (I think of The Small Hours, for example). But I enjoy that these works are light and unfolding. Black does not even feature.
Anyone who is a parent knows how much it changes you, and that is not only because it demands a level of sacrifice, but also because the first year(s?) are relentless. If you don’t bend in some way, you won’t survive. For it to survive, my practice has had to follow suit.
There is a beautiful sense of restraint where you have chosen to apply different colour and glaze. Do you consider balance, composition and the body of work as a whole when applying these?
I do. All of the forms are made in the round, and I work on them over a period of weeks. Regarding the palette, I did a number of test tile swatches for these works, to see how far I could push the underglaze toward a watercolour approach. As with anything ceramics, it was a bit of guesswork and hoping for the best.
The artworks are at an intimate scale. They want to be investigated by the eye, explored. Interesting shadows and pockets of light emerge in them. I imagine that’s reflected somewhat in the making of the pieces? Rotating, poking holes through, handling, whilst retaining structural integrity.
Yes, very much so. I am constantly rotating them as I work so they have no single vantage point. When cutting segments out, there is the tension between what will and won’t hold. Even embracing partial collapses when building the porcelain up.
Path of least resistance I, porcelain & lustre, 95x145x115mm, 2026
That element of not knowing the result or direction of a work until it is physically happening, the clay in conversation with you, perhaps has a neat connection to parenthood? You have to become comfortable with uncertainty and find a different kind of responsiveness.
That’s an interesting thought, I had not put two and two together. If only my daughter could be a little more still, like the clay!
