Selini I

Marea Gazzard was born in Sydney to Greek-Australian parents and studied at the National Art School, where she came under the tutelage of renowned potter Peter Rushforth, who encouraged the use of natural materials and to work towards unity, spontaneity and simplicity of form.

She travelled to Europe in 1955 and settled in London the following year, enrolling at the London Central School of Arts and Crafts. There Gazzard became interested in handbuilding and made frequent visits to the British Museum to study the Cycladic collection, which has been one of her most powerful aesthetic influences throughout her career, alongside Australian Indigenous art.

'Selini I' is from the artist's 2009 series 'Selini', the Greek word for moon. The clay medium is deftly moulded by hand into a reductive, timeless shape and then reproduced in monumental bronze. Its simplicity is both geometric and organic. Undulating depressions and vigorous lines and marks scored into the clay create a crater-like surface, which enriches the lustrous gold patina.