Artificial Kingdom: Midnight Garden

Ebony Russell is an artist living and working in Sydney, Australia. She received her Masters in Fine Arts (Ceramics) from the National Art School, Sydney and is now a sessional lecturer in the Ceramics Department.

Piped Dreams explores objects imbued with notions of nostalgia and desire. "Objects can stir memories and are used mnemonically to create, store and retrieve a sense of past", says Ebony. "My work is a response to aspects of my experience, focusing on my personal connection to these objects through childhood memory, identity and contemporary collecting practices".

"As a child I was obsessed with ornaments and anything frilly and pink. Cake decorating was a particular passion of mine and I longed for the most decorative cake on my birthday each year. I want to investigate how these objects and decorative processes have the capacity to evoke memories and engender a return to childhood reverie in adult life. I am interested in exploring decorative practices traditionally performed by women as the main construction method for my practice. Currently the environments and structures I create utilise cake-piping techniques with porcelain, allowing my imaginings and reveries to take shape. These sculptures are teetering on the brink of disaster, often burdened by the weight of their own structure or heavy with gold lustre drips".