Pinched Paintings

Rowan McGinness and Abbey Jamieson collaborated on this body of work titled Pinched Paintings for an exhibition at ANCA Gallery in 2021. Pinched Paintings consists of a playful, artificial landscape of painted ceramic objects which aim to challenge what is traditionally accepted in the painting and ceramics fields.

McGinness and Jamieson graduated from Honours in painting and ceramcis respectively from the ANU School of Art & Design in 2018. McGinness’ work primarily focuses on how tactility and spatial engagement open up possibilities for making paintings. Jamieson’s practice often focuses on themes if comfort and connection.

The Collaboration between Jamieson and McGinness joins the renegade of artists who are challenging the boundaries of artistic practices. Artists like Katharina Grosse are expanding the audience’s perception of painting being a 2-dimensional medium. Her piece The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped suspended coloured fabric from the interior of Carriageworks allowing the audience to walk through the installation and interact with it.

Clare Twomey is a British artist who uses ceramic materials to create installations that engage her audience in a variety of ways. Although Twomey doesn’t create ceramic work with the intention of domestic functionality, she will often use ceramic history to inform conversations about social issues. Her piece Forever invites the public to own a cup produced for the show if they agreed to sign a deed from the Museum stating that they would keep it forever highlighting issues of ownership, responsibility and the notion of time.

Jamieson’s and McGinness’ project explores the boundary between mediums and art practices. They combine their practices of ceramics, a typically domestic medium, and painting, a traditionally two dimensional medium, to create a sculptural installation. Through multiple holes in the sculptural pinched ceramic objects, Jamieson works to break down the dichotomy between the interior and exterior space of the vessel. This allows the audience an opportunity to reflect on the barriers that are held between their inner and outer selves. McGinness’ textural paintings on the ceramic forms play with the audience’s perception creating illusions of where the forms start and finish. By creating intrigue she entices the viewer for a closer look, encouraging spatial and bodily engagement.

Jamieson and McGinness are interested in installation art as an art form because it involves consideration of spatial dynamics. They aim to engage the audience by emphasising the placement of their bodies in relation to the work. By suspending the works throughout the gallery the viewer is able to view the pieces from all sides.

This collaboration challenges the stigmas of what painting and ceramics should be. Ceramics places painting into three dimensional space. Where a painter needs to view space differently to what they’re used to. By using paint as the surface treatment on the ceramic wares it opens up new opportunities that are not traditionally accepted in the craft field. As well as combining mediums, this work will offer an opportunity for viewers to reflect on the relationship between the natural and the artificial. The organic forms and the materiality of the clay are contrasted with the man made paints applied to the surface in an artificial landscape.