Pippin Drysdale: Infinite Terrain
Through ceramics, I immerse myself in the art I love, fueled by passion and commitment. Though discomfort often lingers, it nudges me into the depths of my subconscious, where true treasures are born. In this dance of commitment and uncertainty, I find the freedom to create authentically.
Pippin Drysdale
Artist
Pippin Drysdale Breakaway series III – Granite Warriors Winborn Rocks Central Desert 2021. Glazed porcelain, 15 parts, dimensions variable. Collection of the Artist. © Pippin Drysdale. Photograph © Robert Frith – Acorn Photo.
Pippin Drysdale Tanami mapping III – Pyrites Lustre III 2014. Glazed porcelain, 24.5 x 17.3 x 17.3 cm. Collection of V Bahen. © Pippin Drysdale. Photograph © Robert Frith – Acorn Photo.
Pippin Drysdale Devil’s marbles – Seedlings Sprout 2018. Glazed porcelain, 11 parts, dimensions variable. Curtin University Art Collection. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Pippin Drysdale. © Pippin Drysdale. Photograph © Robert Frith – Acorn Photo.
Pippin Drysdale’s journeys to new and unfamiliar surroundings have long shaped her practice. She doesn’t necessarily create work while travelling but seeks out visually and culturally diverse environments that stimulate her eye and mind. From Australia’s remote regions to Pakistan, Canada, New Zealand, Italy, Russia and India, these lasting impressions inform her understanding of the world and in turn, her work.
Isobel Wise
AGWA Associate Curator of Contemporary Art
Pippin Drysdale working on a vessel in the spray booth in her Fremantle studio, Fremantle, Western Australia. Photograph © Robert Frith – Acorn Photo.
About Pippin Drysdale
Pippin Drysdale was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in 1943 and grew up in Perth, Western Australia, from the age of three. As a child, art was the only subject at school that allowed Drysdale to express herself and embracing this, her parents enrolled her in private classes in painting and drawing. After leaving school, Drysdale worked in various office jobs in Perth and Canberra, and later in England, before she travelled through Europe.
Drysdale returned to Australia in the early 1960s and relocated to Melbourne, where she began creating art for sale, crafting paper flowers and selling them through local stores. She moved back to Perth in the early 1970s, settling into a cottage in Fremantle, where she still lives and works today. On her return, she became interested in plants and natural remedies, and she made a small business growing and harvesting herbs for outlets throughout Perth.
It was through a good friend who made ceramic forms for Drysdale’s herbs that clay came into life. He built a kiln in her backyard, and they began experimenting, creating small bowls and goblets. As a result, Drysdale became serious about working with clay and enrolled in an Advanced Diploma in Ceramics at Perth Technical College, which she completed in 1982.
After graduating, Drysdale worked and studied in the USA, expanding her technical skills and broadening her worldview in the field of ceramic arts practice. Following her return to Australia, Drysdale enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art at the Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University), which she completed in 1986. Later, as Drysdale discovered her passion for creating large, open porcelain vessels. To balance her dedication to research and travel with her creative practice, she engaged studio technician and master thrower Warrick Palmateer in the early 1990s. Together, they developed a collaborative process that allows Palmateer to realise forms that support Drysdale’s inspired and meticulous glaze work. Over the past 35 years, Palmateer has crafted vessels attuned to Drysdale’s vision of the world, enabling the experimentation and refinement that has shaped the distinctive style for which she is now renowned.
Over the course of her career, Drysdale has travelled throughout the world to exhibit her work, lecture on ceramics and participate in artists’ residency programs in the USA, Italy, Pakistan, New Zealand, Canada, Russia and the United Kingdom.
Her work has been featured in over 450 group and solo exhibitions, and she is represented in public and private collections worldwide. In 2008, Drysdale was named a Master of Australian Craft by the Australia Council for the Arts.
At the age of 82, Drysdale’s art remains both technically and aesthetically remarkable. Her works have been exhibited around the world and are featured in some of the most significant art collections in Australia and internationally.
