Flights of Fancy & Finesse: Tamasin Pepper

The 2025 Siliceous Award for Ceramic Excellence was given to Tamasin Pepper’s work Wrapped Rust and Flight.

The winning piece is surface and form synergistically exploring notions of the Australian landscape. It is a hand-built vessel, with a sophisticated surface achieved through layers of oxides, engobes, and multiple firings, that are evocative of geological ages and the ephemerality of human presence.

Pepper’s success is a culmination of skill and dedicated practice. Since graduating from The Australian National University with a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts), majoring in ceramics, she has worked for decades as a ceramics teacher in conjunction with her own art practice. Her work has been selected for inclusion in many competitions, both nationally and internationally, including the World Ceramic Biennale 2007.

This year’s judge, Dr Julie Bartholomew, noted “Tamasin Pepper steals the Siliceous Award for Ceramic Excellence by combining several of my expectations of successful artwork. These are strong conceptual intent, technical competence and accessibility that may be delivered in various ways”.

As the winner of the Siliceous Award, the work is now part of CAQ’s Permanent Collection, securing its place in the historical record of Australian ceramics.

The photo above was taken in the Metcalfe Gallery, Brisbane Institute of Art (left to right): Dianne Peach, Jude Muduioa, Tamasin Pepper, Chris Dunbar.

Text and photo by Stephanie Henricks.

This article was first published in the CAQ Bulletin March 2025.