Clarissa Regan
Location
Sydney, NSW
About
Dr Clarissa Regan is a practicing Sydney artist and ceramics teacher. She works in ceramics, sculpture, printmaking and painting and holds a PhD and Masters from Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University and a Bachelor of Fine Art Honours from the National Art School. She is interested in narrative, story telling and fairytales in art.
She has exhibited widely and most recently won first prize in functional ceramics at the Sydney Royal Easter Show in 2024. She teaches pottery classes in wheel throwing and hand-building in her home pottery studio, Oatley Pottery Studio, in Sydney.
She has worked as an artist in residence in Sydney’s high schools with the Department of Education and run workshops in ceramics.
She is particularly known for her use of printmaking in ceramics, including incorporating laser decals, china paints, silkscreens, gelli prints and monoprints on the ceramic form.
Artist Statement
Everything old is new again
This practice-led paper will talk about the use of historic and modern printmaking techniques on ceramics.
These includes traditional decals, which have often been dismissed as kitsch and commercial, and seeing them as a spring-board into the world of collage, art journalling and scrapbooking. I will discuss how I make my own DIY laser toner decals from home printers and my approach to gathering imagery from collage journals.
China paints, traditionally neglected as a women’s art, will be described in the context of adding colour to laser toner decals.
Another historical technique of “bat printing” - used from the late 18th century onwards via a gelatine slab - now have a new lease of life with modern “gelli plates”, which will be discussed in my practice, alongside DIY screen-prints.
The talk will also discuss making your own inks and the use of commercial designer liners to include text and written expressions on ceramics.
My vases and platters work as canvases to play with narratives in a non-linear fashion. I use symbols and imagery drawn from the vast plethora of images that float across our daily lives.