Olivia Asher is a Tāmaki-based artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores the material language of lived experience. Working primarily in ceramics, Asher’s practice draws on the relationship between form and feeling, letting intuition and intent guide her process, and memory cling to material in its exchange.
Her current solo exhibition at Malcolm Smith Gallery at Uxbridge, upon a fragile plane, sees Asher exploring these concepts of memory and the state of ‘after’, navigating grief through a beautiful new body of work combining ceramic, painting, and wall adornment. Here, matter holds memory — with clay becoming a metaphor for flesh, once pliant and soft, now hard and fragile, irrevocably changed. In their tender state, the works create a safe container for reflection, resting in this fragile liminal space, exposing an intimate view of the confronting, challenging, and contradictory experiences of ‘after’.
Sof caught up with Olivia Asher about the show and her overall practice.
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