SUPERCUT x Peta Berghofer
16 August - 18 September 2022
Give Take
Image: Peta BERGHOFER / Give Take (Up, up Assemblage), 2022 / ceramic assemblage / dimensions variable / photographer: Grace Yu / © Peta Berghofer
Give Take is a series of ceramic assemblages that focus on the two sides of Berghofer’s practice forming a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship. Symbiosis is a term that describes a relationship between two dissimilar organisms. Mutualism is a type of symbiosis where both species in the relationship benefit from each other equally. In this context, the symbionts are viewed as functional and sculptural ceramics. Each Give Take assemblage is formed from both symbionts, where each object in the structure cannot exist without the other. The dissimilarities between functional and sculptural objects are dissolved, with the assemblages becoming single, ambiguous artworks. The once historically opposing sides of domestic and art-based ceramics exist as one, highlighting the versatility and open-endedness of contemporary ceramic making.
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Outer Space Window Gallery
2R-C, 420 Brunswick Street
Fortitude Valley Q 4006
(map here)
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Peta Berghofer is an Queensland artist based on Giabal and Jarowair lands (Toowoomba, Queensland). Working with ceramics since 2013, Berghofer completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Art) through the University of Southern Queensland in 2016, receiving First Class Honours.
Berghofer’s ceramic-based practice is interested in clay's long-standing ability to record history and reveal human behaviour. Her ambiguous forms sit between sculpture and function, often appropriating common domestic objects to explore elements of material culture. Whether functional or functionless, Berghofer’s self-referential ceramics are most often presented as the same body of work, exhibited as abstracted still-life environments. Here she plays with distinctions between gallery and domestic spaces, engaging with historic and contemporary tensions between art, craft, and design.
Berghofer has exhibited her ceramic work both nationally and internationally. After receiving the USQ Bellmaine French Appreciation Travelling Scholarship in 2017, she undertook residencies in Europe throughout 2019-2020.
Exhibition documentation by Louis Lim
SUPERCUT is supported by the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government Initiative and is presented in partnership with Artspace Mackay and Northsite Contemporary Arts, Cairns.