Stephen Benwell: 'Virtuoso in Clay'
Entering the current Heide exhibition Stephen Benwell: Beauty, Anarchy, Desire – A Retrospective for the first time is quite an experience. Dispersed left and right on two enormous rectangular tables is a chronological survey of the work of one of Australia’s finest ceramic artists. The overview of a remarkable career can be examined in detail as the viewer moves from work to work up and down the tables and back again. Further rooms in the exhibition enrich and amplify the experience, with the presentation of a wider range of the artist’s oeuvre, arranged to make connections between works rather than to show the strict ceramic timeline in the first room. For once, most works are on open display; there is no glass or Perspex, normally de rigueur in such exhibitions, to hinder the viewer.
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