Nestled
Rainford Family Award – $500 Non-Acquisitive
Lilach Mileikowski
Nestled 2023
Stoneware clay, porcelain slip, layered ceramic glaze materials, textured fabric, screen-print stain application, dry glazes, multiple firing
21 x 30 x 16 cm
About the Artwork
This artwork is about connection, human fragility, and the search for fortitude and cultural integration. Nestled by the form are delicate porcelain parchments inscribed with a sacred Hebrew prayer. “Birkat-HaKohanim” is traditionally recited as a farewell blessing for loved ones, wishing for wellbeing and sustenance. Fused into the form, it reflects on the dual notion of the need to comfort and protect and the need of being sheltered.
Presenting ideas of personal and universal significance, this work conveys a fusion of many disparate elements: clay to fabric, nature to man-made, past to present, frozen moment to eternity. Reflecting on nature’s malleable way of reproduction and its way of shielding vulnerable organs, the organic shaped forms are repeated and joined, creating one whole. Each component exists to balance the other, resulting in a work that is simultaneously precarious and resilient. A metaphor for the migrant experience.
About the Artist
Lilach Mileikowski is a ceramic artist based in Naarm/ Melbourne. Originally from Israel with a background in graphic design, Lilach migrated to Australia in 1995, completed a Diploma of Arts Ceramics, followed by an Advanced Diploma of Creative Product Development. In 2016 she completed a Master of Fine Art at RMIT University, with her research focusing on the spiritual and political concerns of identity exploring the dual notions of fragility and strength.
Lilach’s work is held in private collections in Australia and internationally. She has been included in prestigious exhibitions, such as the International Ceramics Festival, Mino, Japan; Gold Coast International Ceramic Art Award, Qld; Victorian Ceramic Art Award; Muswellbrook Art Prize, NSW; Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, NSW; and The Lake Macquarie Art Prize, NSW.
Most recently, her work was celebrated in a solo show SUSTENANCE (2023), was selected as a finalist for the Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition, Victoria (2024), and for the Australian Ceramics Association Exhibition HELD, NSW (2024).
Invited by the Interior Designer Simone Haag, Lilach will be participating in the Craft Victoria end-of-year show, Fables & Folklore, Victoria, November 2024 – January 2025.