SITUATE / 3 September to 2 December 2018
SPARE ROOM / 7 June to 6 July 2019
OPENING / Thursday 6 June 2019, 5–7pm
Remediation is the act of re-forming an object out of a material from which it isn’t usually made. Madeleine Thornton-Smith uses remediation as a method of investigating medium specificity—in particular the location where, and the manner in which, one distinct medium ends and another begins. Employing a slow process of accumulation and repetition, she uses slip-casting to bring together commonplace studio material surfaces—bubble wrap, acrylic paint, polystyrene, expanding foam, render and concrete—with archetypal forms from fine art and ceramics—vessels, plinths, canvases and tiles. Thornton-Smith uses these mimetic and composite practices to re-evaluate material hierarchies and to raise questions about the status and value of ceramics, ‘art’ and ‘craft’.
Madeleine has a background in painting and ceramics. Moving from a primarily image-based practice to an object-based practice, she is interested in the tension between these forms of artmaking. Madeleine has obtained multiple qualifications including a Bachelor of Arts/Visual Arts (Monash, 2013), Honours of Fine Art (Monash, 2014) and Diploma of Ceramics (Holmesglen, 2017). In 2017 she achieved First-Class Honours in Object-Based Practice (Ceramics) at RMIT. Recently she has been interrogating traditional archetypes of the vessel, pedestal and canvas through casting and remediation. Madeleine has exhibited in various galleries throughout Melbourne, including BLINDSIDE, c3, Seventh, Lamington Drive and Craft Victoria.
This award is generously supported by the RMIT School of Art Bachelor of Art (Fine Art) (Honours).