Guy Benfield is the fourth artist to be invited to explore the City of Fremantle Collection. His installation juxtaposes his selection of ceramics from the Collection, many of which have not been recently exhibited, alongside his own.  

 

Benfield’s approach to the Collection reflects a worldwide revival of interest in the crafts and their accompanying ideals. To make, acquire and to hold ceramics is a cultivated pursuit which has long been enjoyed in the Fremantle community. The connoisseurship of ceramics is equated with a keen eye and good taste.  

 

Benfield appreciates the folly of his own ceramics. They are far from the embodiment of admired values such as solidity and honesty. Benfield animates his own ceramics with a sense of the precarious and the ephemeral which derives from his engagement with performance and collage. He mixes up the earthy sensibility of the ‘pots’ with his pop-psychedelic aesthetic of faux wood grain and woven and metallic textures.  

 

Through his iconoclastic installation he is seeking to draw attention to how aesthetic activities function in our daily lives. He is suggesting that our stylistic choices are not only about the desire to get in touch with our creativity and to re-cast and improve our corner of the world but they are also expressive of our vanities.  

 

Benfield is an Australian artist who lives in New York. He is represented by Kaliman Gallery, Sydney, and Uplands Gallery, Melbourne. This exhibition is presented with sincere thanks to the participating Collection artists for entering into the spirit of the project.