Meet the Associates… Foundation Year 2023
Photos by Connor Patterson.
JamFactory’s highly acclaimed Associate Program provides outstanding career development opportunities for emerging artists and designers working in the fields of glass, furniture, ceramics or jewellery/metal.
The program is designed to accelerate development of the professional and entrepreneurial skills required to establish and maintain a successful and sustainable creative career.
The program provides a platform for network building and peer to peer learning within a dynamic creative hub that attracts leading art, craft and design industry figures from across Australia and around the world.
Ceramics
Bridget Saville
Bridget Saville is a ceramicist and designer who creates functional and sculptural objects through wheel throwing and hand building techniques. As a graduate of Interior Design from RMIT University, Bridget’s work explores the relationship between architectural forms and the human body. Her work focuses on clean lines, silhouettes, and asymmetry and aims to express the movement of making.
“I am excited to have the space, time, and professional support to explore and expand my practice. I look forward to collaborating and learning from the highly skilled and knowledgeable multi-disciplined community of practitioners around me.”
Sophie Horvat
Ceramicist and maker Sophie Horvat creates functional tableware and statement vessels using wheel throwing and hand building techniques. Sophie’s study of Communication Design at the University of South Australia informs the balance of functionality and tactility within her work. Sophie’s practice is inspired by handmade traditions as well as colours and textures within the Australian landscape near
her home.
“I strive to create pieces to be used and cherished by others. I am excited to delve deeper into my connection with clay and the artistic expression I can achieve through the forms I create. JamFactory’s Associate program presents me with a treasured opportunity to both refine my work, and understand many other methodologies through discussions and time spent with other creative professionals.”
Lotte Schwerdtfeger
Lotte Schwerdtfeger’s practice expresses an instinctive process of play. She primarily hand builds, coiling and pinching, both functional and sculptural works, combining tendrils of research spanning historical ceramics traditions. Often beginning with classical vessels, ceramic archetypes are expanded by the artist’s experimental approach to clay bodies and glazed surfaces. References to natural forms and processes, utilitarian objects and cultural artifacts, arise from Lotte’s interest in anthropology, symbolism and ritual. Lotte is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts; regularly working on commission, collaborative projects and gallery exhibitions.
“Solving the mystery of how something is made, looks, or used keeps me constantly enquiring through process and experimentation. I’m interested in deep time, uncertainty and the secret lives of objects, hoping to represent a spark of narrative in a piece or patinaed surface. Objects shape how human lives are lived from everyday rituals to monuments and happenings. I hope to create pieces and installations that evoke these feelings of timeless experience.”
Furniture
Tom Dell'Oso
Tom Dell’Oso is a Product Designer based in Tarntanya (Adelaide) and holds a degree in Product Design from the University of South Australia. In his practice he draws on his knowledge and curiosity of materials and processes, incorporating analogue and digital design methodologies to experiment and produce intriguing forms for objects and furniture.
“My practice combines an approach of exploration with the process of iteration. I’m looking forward to my time as a JamFactory Associate to work collaboratively and learn from the broad knowledge and skills of the staff and other associates across all studios.”
Liam Starcevich
Liam Starcevich is an architecturally-trained designer/maker focussing on solid timber furniture. Taking an intuitive approach to design, Liam is influenced by the entire breadth of the field from automotive to film design. He was trained in furniture craftsmanship at the Sturt School for Wood and delights in developing novel technical and aesthetic approaches to the medium of fine furniture.
“Having landed in the field of furniture quite by happenstance, I feel as though I have hit my stride. It is my ambition to develop a distinctive design language that is complemented by innovative approaches to making. I am especially excited to be surrounded by a rich community of boundary breakers who excel as both artists and technicians.”
Nat Penney
Nat Penney is an artist based in Tarntanya (Adelaide). Graduating from Adelaide College of the Arts with First Class Honours in Visual Art in 2017, she’s since translated those skills to jobs in timber furniture making and metal fabrication. Restlessly merging these fields, Nat’s searches for awkward and humorous situations, often resulting in flip flopping moments that can be both discomforting and titillating. Her work is conceptually considered looking to challenge ideas of uselessness and to relieve everyday apathy.
“I’m looking to continuously build on my skillset, always acquiring processes to broaden the perspectives that I’m able to approach from. I like to sift through the collection for an insight into productive pathways; to make a practice that looks outward, that becomes more purposeful than itself.”
Glass
Gautriya Murathietharan
Gautirya Muralietharan’s practice feeds from the disconnect of their lived reality of social expectations. Born on Gadigal land (Sydney) to immigrant Tamil Sri Lankan parents, Gautirya’s first year of glass experience was concurrent with a late diagnosis of neurodivergence and a personal inquest into gender identity. Facing the realities and conflict of skin color and white culture, Gautirya’s practice has led to an acute awareness of external perceptions and the desire to dissect liminality. Their practice ergo is intrigued with the relationship of interior and exterior space, activating and responding to boundaries possible within material.
“Coloured in curiosity, I am on a journey with material to explore our synergetic potential. Within a culture of perpetual minimalist consumerism, my designs aspire to be balanced with a slow baroque aesthetic.”
Julia Fernandes
Julia Fernandes is an emerging glass artist from Gadigal land (Sydney). Through her studies at Sydney College of the Arts, Julia was introduced to glass and has since become fascinated with the material and its boundless creative potential. During her time at JamFactory, Julia will develop her technical skills, aesthetic and profile as an emerging artist.
“My practice currently focuses on utilising colour, pattern and form to create beautiful objects. I enjoy designing functional objects but am also eager to explore abstract forms. I’m very excited to be at JamFactory and to develop my technical skills; I cherish the opportunity to be surrounded by distinguished artists who will mentor me whilst I develop my artistic voice.”
Bronwyn Sargeson
Bronwyn Sargeson is a visual artist who works primarily with glass. Raised in Canberra on Ngunnawal/Ngambri country, Bronwyn completed a Bachelor of Visual Art majoring in Glass in 2021 at the Australian National University’s School of Art and Design. She was the recipient of multiple Emerging Artist Support Scheme Awards in 2021, including a residency at Canberra Glassworks. Bronwyn has exhibited in galleries nationally and was a finalist in the Fuse Glass Prize in 2022.
“My work challenges notions of beauty often associated with glass. Although including playful elements of colour and form, my work tackles the jarring and often necessary medical procedures required for a chronically ill body. Driven by ongoing material investigation, my practice led research incorporates multiple studio glass processes, often in unconventional ways. This practice seeks to realise the potential for transformation in these moments of pain.”
Jewellery and Metal
Aimee Bradley
Aimee Bradley graduated from Whitecliffe, New Zealand with a Bachelor of Jewellery Design and Techniques. Her work is narrative based and influenced by her interest in folklore, exploring new places and experiences whilst growing up in a small rural town.
“I have always been driven to create with my hands. Part of this drive comes from growing up around my dad’s blacksmith shop watching him manipulate steel and create something new. I am excited to be given this opportunity to develop my practice around like-minded people.”
Christine Collins
Christine Collins began studying and making jewellery as a tilt toward materiality. She develops works in jewellery form, which incorporate precious, refined and natural materials. Christine’s work explores relationships between the attribution of meaning and material form. She draws on her practice as a visual artist, having completed a Masters of Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art in 2005.
“My practice is driven by experimentation. I begin with a collection of material elements and develop works by exploring combinations and compositions of forms, to create opportunities for their re-evaluation. I am excited to be working within the supportive multidisciplinary community of JamFactory. It is a great opportunity to refine my artistic voice and develop a sustainable practice.”
Jenny Johnstone
Jenny Johnstone is a trained jeweller interested in the Australian landscape and all it has to offer - its ever changing palette, the plants that inhabit it, its stories and interrelationship with humans over time. With a background in Architecture and after graduating from Design Centre Enmore, Jenny moved to Tarntanya (Adelaide) to join JamFactory.
“My practice of jewellery and object making in metal also involves other mediums and scales, including paint and sculpture. Artists such as Fred Williams, Robert Juniper and Guy Warren are deeply inspiring to me, being particularly drawn to dry landscapes. I look forward to developing my creative practice in a supportive environment amongst other artists.”