Since 1982, Melbourne-based ceramist Jill Symes has developed a body of work that is as strong as it is diverse. Her work is marked by a dedication to explore a range of materials and techniques that in turn lead her toward new forms and possibilities of expression.

The idea of progressive stages holds little ground in Symes' career. Rather, each Series in her work holds its own ground - without however, falling into isolation from its antecedents or descendants. Indeed Symes has consistently maintained a concern for expressing, through her medium, the human relationship to earth, sky and sea, its symbolic connection to primeval forms, colours and textures and these to the body and the spontaneous gesture. It is this sense of fecundity, this vitality that Symes imbues in all her pots.

Excerpt from catalogue essay Jill Symes: A Survey 1989 - 2002 by Steven Heath, Director, Haecceity Arts Ceramic Art Gallery

Pit-firing, sheep-dung firing (in New Zealand), wood-firing in a crude kiln of house-bricks, sawdust firing in dust-bins and kilns assembled from found materials, fibre-kiln built in a fridge, loose firebrick kilns built around large pieces.

Raku - aah the aesthetic and philosophy truly inspiring! Creating and capturing the moment - total concentration. Working in raku, relishing this process of direct involvement with the fire.

Burnishing. Saggar firing. 1982 - choosing a path to follow for the next ten years, with a first exhibition of this work at Blackwood Street Gallery, Melbourne. Rounded forms, coil-built from fine clays, painstakingly paddled and burnished, smooth, tactile. Alternatively scraped, textured surfaces with beach sand in the clay. Coloured by fire and the organic substances contained with the saggar. Once-fired in a small (8cu.ft.) gas kiln made of fire-brick inside, house-brick outside, with a layer of vermiculite between.

Employing intuition, experiment and experience in placement of sawdust, salt (and sometimes seaweed) around the pots within the saggar of split firebricks where small gaps were left between the splits, allowing the spirit of the fire to flash across the pot - the unknown element. Surfaces of silky black charcoal, silvery lustres from the pine sawdust. Fiery flashings of orange and red from the salt on an iron body in Sunset; pinks, oranges and greys on Sunrise; black predominant on Moon, Cloud, and Midnight. Endless burnishing. Slow, slow firings (15-20hours). Burning the midnight oil - falling asleep waiting for the temperature to be reached - sometimes with only one large pot in the kiln.

Fleshpot - full blown, asymmetrical forms with flesh-like surfaces. Feminine. Breasts. Bottoms.

Fecundity. Tree - tall, flat-based, a departure from the rounded form, exploring symbols of potency and growth. An upright form made by slab, coil and pinch. Scraped, textured surface, also burnished, fired in saggars.

1991-92

Blackfire - access to a large kiln leads to exploration of large forms in both fine and rugged clays. Coarse clays are immediate, responsive, textured, providing a surface to be explored in a totally different way to smooth fine clays. The graininess of the clay compels the building of large forms. The size of the kiln opens up new opportunities. Raku glazes and sensibilities are employed. A full rounded form with a long neck (male/female) and vessels suggesting feminine forms present active, vigorous female figures drawn onto the surface, following the form of the vessel. Blackfiring provides a luminous charcoal ground for the lustred drawings. These are not females passively draped on beds and couches or ‘at toilette’, but active, fun-loving females, enjoying their private dance.

With this development, the vessels themselves were becoming closer to human form. A primitive essence was retained in the work. The forms were organic, feminine, asymmetrical.

1994. A dry blue glaze is employed on large vessels and sculptural forms. A great glaze for figurative works fired by gas or electricity. By now the fridge kiln is employed to fire these larger forms. The glaze suggests sea and sky, its verdigris qualities enhance texture on coarse clays, and provides its own layer of interest and variety over a textured surface when poured and dipped. It picks up the texture and rhythm of the coiling process when applied by brush. The variety in the colours is dependent on kiln temperature, thickness of glaze, glazing technique and layer under the glaze. It is a glaze where the user sets up the circumstances, but does not have the last word in the result. Joy is in the surprise and the ability to relinquish control.

In further exploration of the male/female form, exaggerated long necks on rounded forms are given rich red interiors, landscaped by thumbed coils, with dry glaze exteriors like verdigris rocks streaked with the passage of water over time.

1998 - Exploring brushmarks of black slip, relaxed and fluid. The result of working on black & white production tableware and the desire to experience this calligraphy on larger, more sculptural surfaces.

1999 - Back to my first love - terracotta clay, for handbuilt sculptural forms. This tactile earth material, with white slip brushed over, enhancing, covering, concealing, revealing. Some sgraffito and black slip, oxides. And a fragile glaze, with an uncontrollable quality presenting random orange tones over the white slip, transparency where the terracotta shows through, producing characteristics reminiscent of weathered rocks, caves, mud buildings, with appearance of both solidity and lightness. The brushmarks of delicious white slip are unveiled after the glaze firing

2002 -To me the surfaces are rugged, pure, honest to the materials. I enjoy the simplicity of working with just two clays, one glaze and stain or oxide. Form and surface in harmony. Qualities as found in the architecture of nature and man when working with mud.Once again I relish the treasured elements of chance, randomness, the unknown, of capturing the moment, as in each phase of my journey.