BARBARA CAMPBELL-ALLEN OAM

‘The River Runs Deep’! How does this relate to a contemporary ceramics practice? As it turns out – it has everything to do with both the individual works and their groupings, in this extremely engaging exhibition. For many years Barbara Campbell-Allen has responded to inspiring environmental experiences through making what are hand-built, woodfired ceramic works, with forms and surfaces brought together to reflect her observations and perceptions of travelling through a range of different landscapes. A well-acknowledged ceramic artist with an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) and other awards, and a Masters Degree, she has taught, exhibited and curated exhibitions consistently throughout her career, and was president of The Australian Ceramics Association in 2005 and 2006. 

Before she started working in ceramics in the late 1970s at East Sydney Technical College and later at the Gippsland Centre for Design and Art, she had studied geomorphology, a science that researches the origin and development of landforms (such as hills, valleys, sand dunes, caves and rocks), and how they combine to form landscapes. Inevitably, these directions came together in her work, through related materials, forms, surfaces and textures, and consideration of geological formation processes involving water, heat and erosion. Hand-forming with buff or white stoneware clay, and porcelain and earthenware slip surfaces, she has used wood-firing anagama kilns since first building one in 1988, usually firing in long four-day sessions, saying ‘My making and firing are a reflection of the processes of nature, sometimes life giving, sometimes destructive.’ Over time, some of the locations she has interpreted in this way have resulted in exhibitions including: The Vast Arc, Elemental Presence, Colours of Australia, Gondwana Horizon, Overland and Old Rivers.

Now, in her fourth solo exhibition at Rochfort Gallery, we can join her in a further experience: this time a nine-day rafting journey down the Franklin River in Southwest Tasmania, now a world heritage wilderness area of temperate rainforest. Along the way she was reminded of various histories of the Franklin River, including its geological history as a Gondwanaland split followed by ice ages with glaciers; its geomorphology with fluvial erosion sculpting the canyon as it transitions from quartzite to limestone; its Indigenous history over 25,000 years; colonial, convict and logger history from 1815; and environmental activism, including ‘the blockade’ experience in 1982/3 to stop the damming of the Franklin river, and the subsequent establishment of the World Heritage Wilderness Area.

 

Bearing those histories in mind, Campbell-Allen later recorded in these impressive works, the physical experience of her journey. The titles of the works reflect the nine-day excursion through four themes, inter-grouped in the exhibition to reflect the sequential changes and relationships along the river route. She describes them as:

The Canyon: Large rounded gently indented forms evoking the majesty of the Great Ravine and Walls of Jericho.

Pools: These appear as recitatives or pauses in the tumultuous river journey. Irenabyss, which means chasm of peace, is a name coined by Bob Brown (Green MP activist) on one of his first trips down the river.

Rocks: These range from huge boulders to small flattened shingles found around the pools, creating beaches. The small shingles, which I call River Pearls, hold the story of the geology and geomorphology in their make-up and form. 

Vegetation: The forest contains many giants of Huon Pine, Mountain Ash and Myrtle, hundreds of years old. I have used simple forms as a canvas to highlight the variety and richness of colour and texture found in these old forests.

Each work demonstrates her impressive skills in both designing and making ceramic works and in expressing what she is aiming to interpret. In arranging the installation, she has grouped each work in sequences experienced across those days, reminding herself of such as the contrast of turbulence of rapids to the stillness of pools, of large boulders to shingly pebbles, and high canyons to river flats. She hopes that in working our way round the exhibition, we might also recognise the sequence of her journey which she describes as a ‘metaphor for the experience of life’, where the ‘Rhythms of the Franklin’ include: 

‘… the physical progression of the river – pools separated by rapids,  changing from calm silent places to the noise and turbulence of the rapids; the spatial rhythm of narrow canyon sections with water channelled into powerful drops compared to the tranquility of deep pools; the progression of the river from the energetic headwaters to the placid broad river of the lower reaches; the drama of the impressive Great Ravine to the gentler rapids of the Corascades to the lower sections where the forest is the dominant feature of the landscape; and the rhythm of the individual trees, the pines and eucalypts to the repetitious nature of experiencing the dense forest when floating down the river.’ (1)

Congratulations Barbara! In presenting these responses to your close personal experience of the Franklin River you have reminded me that I am still so glad I was arrested with many others in 1983 for trying to save it from being dammed. Through your very meaningful works, you have reminded me of that occasion and its positive outcomes, and I am sure that your offering of an imagined circling of your recent river journey in the exhibition, will also do this for others. The intertwining of past and present through your work is really significant and interesting.

(1) All quotes from correspondence with author, 2024