A duo of Nelson Tasman artists are vying for a glaze of glory at New Zealand’s prestigious ceramic awards this week.
The annual Portage Ceramic Awards, which take shape at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery in Auckland, celebrate Aotearoa’s dynamic contemporary ceramics.
Wood fired designer, Darryl Frost, who operates Tasman gallery, Frost and Fire, says he had made artworks full-time for about 40 years, and 2023 was the first time he had entered the awards in a decade.
He says his creation, named RD2 Uppermoutrie, was an “elegant and beautiful” combination of wood, bone and cow horn.
“I made the work on an artist in residency programme at Driving Creek up in Coromandel where I was working with 10 other artists, I went there with no expectations and no idea to what I would make,” he says.
“I started playing with the simplicity of the adzes and [the artwork is] the combination of using wood, bone and cow horn blended together into something elegant and beautiful.
“It’s taken me 40 years of learning to be able to be in the position I’m in to create what I can.”
Darryl says his gallery, which he’s operated for about seven years, included displays of his work and work by other artists, including Motueka-based sculptor, Nicholas Duval-Smith.
“I’ve got regular buyers that keep coming back and 99 per cent of people who come into the gallery are surprised and excited by it all,” he says.
“Then they get to see my kilns and they really start to appreciate the art of wood firing when they see the amount of work that goes into it.”
Mandy Gargiulo, who has been a porcelain artist based at her Stoke home studio for about eight years, says it was her third time entering the awards and she was awarded last year’s people’s choice.
She says she was “happy” to be a finalist, but an award for her hand decorated, high fired porcelain creation named ‘Moleta’, which is inspired by Te Aumiti, the French Pass, would be “an icing on the cake”.
“It portrays the harsh currents, and waves and whirlpools of the area, and relating to the experiences in the early 1900s of Angelina Moleta who was an Italian immigrant to D’Urville Island,” she says.
The piece is on a piece of reclaimed rimu which represents her friend named, Wetekia Ruruku Elkington, they bonded over the circumstance of the harsh environment, so the rimu is her side of it, and the ceramic piece is Angelina’s part.
“I was honoured to be amongst some big names in the top ceramic competition in New Zealand.”
The awards are unveiled on 23 November, and artworks selected by the judges, including RD2 Uppermoutrie and Moleta, will feature at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery until March, 2024.
