Artists

Honor Freeman is an artist living and working in the Fleurieu Peninsula on Ngarrindjeri land in South Australia, whose practice utilises the mimetic properties of porcelain, crafting objects that belie their materiality and purpose.

Freeman completed her studies in 2001 at the South Australian School of Art. Following graduation, Honor took up an Associate position and Tenant residency in the ceramics studio at JamFactory Craft & Design. Her work has been curated into major exhibitions at institutions throughout Australia, including the MCA, Tarrawarra Museum of Art and The PowerHouse Museum. She has undertaken international residencies at Guldagergaard, Denmark’s International Ceramic Museum and in the US at Indiana University’s School of Art & Design. In 2006 Freeman travelled to Chile to exhibit and participate in the The South Project, continuing her project on/off/on, installing porcelain light switches and powerpoints clandestinely in public spaces. In 2018 she was invited to undertake the Guildhouse Collections Project at the Art Gallery of South Australia, the outcome of this residency Ghost Objects, was exhibited in 2019 as part of SALA Festival.

Exhibiting since 2000, Honor’s work is held in numerous public collections including the NGV, Art Gallery of South Australia, ArtBank and Washington DC’s National Musuem of Women in the Arts. Her works feature in the publication 101 Contemporary Australian artists, published by the NGV, and the international publication Ceramics Masterclass : creative techniques of 100 great artists, by Louisa Taylor.

My practice reveals a careful observation of the domestic realm and the ordinariness of the everyday. The work conveys ideas of material transformation. The transmutation of common, unremarkable domestic objects into sculptures that belie their materiality and purpose – an ordinary alchemy.

Working primarily in porcelain I harness the mimetic qualities inherent in clay through the magic of slip casting. The works playfully interact with ideas of liquid made solid. The porcelain casts echo the original objects; the liquid slip turns solid and becomes a memory of a past form – a ghost object.

Thoughts of preserving, measuring and marking time’s passing occupy the work during the making. There is a correlation between actions and gestures used when engaging with objects and those used during the production that informs the work. Time is integral, transferred from the making process to the viewing.

Honor Freeman, 2023