Kirsten Coelho

My name is Kirsten Coelho. I'm a potter working in Adelaide, working predominantly in porcelain clay. I make my work on the wheel and often my work is in reference to museum collections.

I was really thrilled to be invited into this exhibition. The other artists that I'm exhibiting with, I admire very much. And also, I'm so excited at the prospect of working with a phenomenal collection like the one at the Chau Chak Wing Museum.

Unexpectedly, something that really powerfully resonated with me in the collection was the very great care given to all of the objects- pottery shards, fragments of paper - small and large. The museum materials and the passion of the curators and archeologists. I thought I would mainly be focusing on the objects themselves, but actually, it was the entirety of the museum and all the workings and materials of the museum.

This experience of working with the Chau Chak Wing Museum for this exhibition has had a really profound impact on my practice, and I think it will feed into my practice for a very long time and influence the things I make. This is the first time I'm ever exhibiting a work on paper and for me, that, you know, that feels a bit scary, but it was also a way for me to articulate something that I experienced within the museum. And you know, that's what art practices is in a way, isn't it? Is trying to find a new language for an experience or an idea or an emotion. 

And also my ceramic objects, you know, my work for this exhibition has a very emotional title. It's a very emotive story, the idea of the 12 maidens of Penelope.

I think I would really like people to connect with the way that I connect with the history of objects, and the way that history of objects talk about society, but also can be recontextualised and talk about the contemporary world as well.