Nattai River Valley (NRV) porcelain stone, Australia

Steve Harrison’s ceramics take simple forms - specifically bowls and cups as a vehicle through which to articulate concerns around ceramic history, the environment, and a way of life based upon trying to touch the ground lightly. His research into kiln and clay technology has led him to a simplification of production and sourcing of materials that strips ceramics back to its origins.

His important series of bowls known as '5 stones' are made from the five naturally occurring sources of porcelain in the world: Jingdezhen, China; Yanggu, Korea; Arita, Japan; Cornwall, UK and Mittagong, Australia. Harrison's investigations into these sources stretch over 15 years, from 2002 to 2017. He is interested in the origins of these porcelain sources, specifically centred around a rock called serecite, which is ground and processed into a clay body without additives.

This bowl is made using materials originally sourced in 1959 by Ivan McMeekin a figure central to Australian ceramics who undertook years of research into indigenous Australian materials as clay body and glaze material. McMeekin made only a few pots from the material and the mine closed in the 1960s and the side of the mountain was removed in the early 1980s for the Hume Highway Mittagong By-Pass. Harrison was given a few stones of this material in a hessian sack labeled ‘NRV’ and made only six pots from the contents of the sack.