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2025.1
Indecorum: In Confidence Vase & Pedestal Set (2025.1)
Catalogue Record
Collection
Maker
Ebony Russell
Title
Indecorum: In Confidence Vase & Pedestal Set
Made in
Sydney
Date
2022
Materials and techniques
I work with Lumina Porcelain, a high-quality Australian porcelain produced by Keane Ceramics. Each sculpture begins with porcelain slurry, which I process by hand before loading into piping bags fitted with traditional cake decorating tips. Using this method, I extrude the porcelain—layer by delicate layer—to build the form. The slurry is often tinted with ceramic stains prior to piping, allowing me to create rich, vibrant surfaces. Once complete, the pieces are fired to a high stoneware temperature, typically between 1230–1280°C, resulting in durable yet intricate ceramic structures.
The pieces are made completely by hand.
In my current art practice, the techniques and processes traditionally used in cake decorating have replaced ceramic techniques. The saccharine embellishment and delicate layers are intensified and given permanence with the use of high-fired porcelain. The specially prepared porcelain is slowly piped in layers - building up the curvilinear form. The ornament itself becomes the structure, undermining the intention of decoration's original purpose. Creating sculptures that appear to defy their own making; I embrace the decorative, disrupting the boundaries and hierarchies between high and low, art and craft, structure and decoration. Making in this way feels like magic to me, as if the piece forms itself from my wand-like tool.
The pieces are made completely by hand.
In my current art practice, the techniques and processes traditionally used in cake decorating have replaced ceramic techniques. The saccharine embellishment and delicate layers are intensified and given permanence with the use of high-fired porcelain. The specially prepared porcelain is slowly piped in layers - building up the curvilinear form. The ornament itself becomes the structure, undermining the intention of decoration's original purpose. Creating sculptures that appear to defy their own making; I embrace the decorative, disrupting the boundaries and hierarchies between high and low, art and craft, structure and decoration. Making in this way feels like magic to me, as if the piece forms itself from my wand-like tool.
Dimensions
length: 54cm
width: 40cm
height: 40cm
Object number
2025.1
Credit
Brookfield Properties Craft Award Winner 2025. In partnership with Crafts Council Collection. Purchased with support from Brookfield Properties.
On view
99 Bishopsgate
Maker's statement
Like two young ladies in a Jane Austen novel, these urns are caught in a moment of private exchange—confidantes leaning into one another with conspiratorial charm. Their tilted forms and animated stances evoke an anthropomorphic presence, suggesting they hold secrets, stories, or possibly shared mischief.
This work continues my interest in gendered aesthetics and the politics of labour, using a technique rooted in cake piping—historically coded as feminine and decorative—to construct monumental ceramic forms. With every layer of rosette, bow, and ruffle, I embrace the “superfluous” and push it to the forefront, blurring the divide between ornament and structure, art and craft, form and frivolity.
In Confidence speaks to the enduring legacy of the ceramic vessel, a tradition I honour while subverting. By allowing decoration to take on both surface and structural roles, these pieces destabilise the hierarchies embedded in modernist ideologies, where decoration is dismissed as feminine and therefore lesser. Here, the ornamental becomes essential—a mode of resistance, resilience, and dialogue.
This work continues my interest in gendered aesthetics and the politics of labour, using a technique rooted in cake piping—historically coded as feminine and decorative—to construct monumental ceramic forms. With every layer of rosette, bow, and ruffle, I embrace the “superfluous” and push it to the forefront, blurring the divide between ornament and structure, art and craft, form and frivolity.
In Confidence speaks to the enduring legacy of the ceramic vessel, a tradition I honour while subverting. By allowing decoration to take on both surface and structural roles, these pieces destabilise the hierarchies embedded in modernist ideologies, where decoration is dismissed as feminine and therefore lesser. Here, the ornamental becomes essential—a mode of resistance, resilience, and dialogue.