In Scott Duncan’s ceramics, references from mid-century modern to antiquity fuse together through the firing process. Playful in construction and ambiguous in function, aesthetic histories adhere and then peel off like a turned up edge of corrugate cardboard. With a capacity to conjure the texture of an Italian Bitossi Ceramiche object or a local Bendigo Pottery vase, Scott Duncan pulls our focus to the echo of ancient forms in modern design. Antiquity stares back in the suggestion of an Etruscan face cut out of the side of a fruit box, the mouth inviting a hand to enter it. Duncan’s hand built forms might also suggest delicate perfume bottles with glass stoppers, while offering a scale that is as resilient as a Roman wine amphora.
On technique, Scott Duncan approaches things with a punk aesthetic. He has an idea of what he wants to achieve and then figures out how to make it work. Remarkably, each object is a single piece of earthenware. Shifts in texture, colour and gloss are achieved during the firing process. The artist makes his own dry underglazes, manufacturing chalk and his own pencils to create the idiosyncratic lines that mark the surface. Backing up the last five years of dedicated art making is his lengthy experience as a head chef. Downplaying the skill involved in ceramics, Duncan states, “It’s like making a cake,” before adding, “Porcelain clay is kind of like shortcrust pastry.” The production ethic and decisiveness of a chef is certainly evident in these pieces.
For the current show, Empty Vessels, Scott Duncan has ramped up the scale and constructed what he describes as a “mid-century monolith” of stacked forms. Saturn is a centrepieceof nostalgic modernist references looping back to a Greek myth origin story. Duncan’s Saturn ravenously expresses an enthusiastic appetite for the designed world high and low, from archaeological dig to a 1970s lounge room.
Scott Duncan grew up in Warrnambool on the south coast of Victoria at a time when the pathways offered for young men spanned football, farming or surfing. So he surfed and commenced art study locally with teacher Glenn Morgan. After recommencing his art practice, a residency at Kil.n.it Experimental Ceramics Studios in Glebe, Sydney, has connected him with an audience interested in ambitious work in clay. Empty Vessels is the artist’s first solo show at The Egg & Dart Gallery, Thirroul. - Melody Willis
