SARAH TRACTON / ceramics

The delicate swirls of marbled colour in Sarah Tracton’s vessels can be a pleasant surprise even to her. They surface in unexpected shapes and vibrancy at the end of a long and arduous process the artist likens to making pizza, in which she layers wet porcelain slip onto plaster slabs, adding colour stains and firing twice in kilns blasting up to 1280 degrees. “I think about how the colours will marry with each other, but I have no idea how it’s going to turn out,” she says. “I watch them evolve; each one has its own personality.” An awardwinning documentary filmmaker and graduate of Sydney’s National Art School, Tracton was inspired to turn to ceramics after experiencing a profound life change: born with moderate hearing loss and eventually losing her hearing completely, she received a cochlear implant in 2013. “Things became brighter; colours and the tactility of materials felt more intense,” she says. “That vibrancy and connection to the world around me comes into the work. Art has power when it reflects personal trajectories.” Visit sarahtracton.com.