Alana McVeigh
Location
Perth, WA
About
Artist Alana McVeigh is represented by Stala Contemporary Art Gallery in West Perth where she has held eight solo exhibitions. She has also participated in group exhibitions in Brisbane and Sydney along with international exhibitions in Finland, China and Denmark.
Alana has presented workshops and papers at national and international conferences including ScanCeram 2013, Tolne, Denmark, Australian Ceramics Triennale, University of Sydney 2009 and the Verge National Ceramic Conference 2006, Brisbane. Alana’s work is held in private collections in America, Canada,
Germany, Japan and public collections including the Zhou Guo-Zhen Ceramic Art Museum, Anren, China and Sanbao China Cultural Exchange Museum, Jingdezhen, China.
She completed her PhD at Curtin University in 2020 where she continues to work as a sessional academic.
Artist Statement
Drawing upon a combination of creative practice, tacit knowledge and sensory awareness, this paper considers how experiential knowledge, amassed over time by observing, replicating and doing, built a visual, cognitive and sensual vocabulary that
has become embodied into a visceral form of making: a form of making and awareness that entered Australian ceramic studio practice from China, Japan, Korea and Britain primarily during the 1940s–1960s.
Additionally, the paper examines the work of key Australian makers to demonstrate how experiential learning entered and provided a foundation for Australian ceramic arts. The findings from this study show how ceramic skills gleaned through tacit,
sensory and experiential knowledge with reference to cross cultural positions, and traditional ceramic influence continues to evolve in contemporary Australian ceramic practice.