Breakwater
Janetta Kerr-Grant
Breakwater (detail) 2025
Porcelain
Coloured slips and engobes
14 x 34 x 2 cm
About the Artwork
This porcelain wall-based work captures the exhilaration of standing on a rocky outcrop on a stormy summer’s day, with the foamy whitewash continually, rhythmically, breaking over the wet slippery rocks. Thin washes of colour build to create a layered, textured surface, distilling my memories and evoking a strong sense of place.
About the Artist
Janetta Kerr-Grant is a Naarm/Melbourne based ceramicist inspired by landscape, atmosphere and memory. She uses clay like a diary to transcribe her surroundings. Locality is a touchstone; she often returns to the same stretch of coastline, or the inner-city creeks near where she lives, to forge a deeper connection. Janetta graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) from RMIT University in 2012, majoring in Ceramics, and in 2013 was awarded an Australia Council Art Start Grant. She has undertaken residencies in Japan and Finland.
Janetta has exhibited widely in Australia in public and commercial galleries, including Manly Art Gallery, McClelland Art Gallery, Craft Victoria, Gosford Regional Gallery, Bett Gallery, Perc Tucker Gallery, and Stockroom Gallery. In 2018 she won the Klytie Pate Ceramic Award. Her work is held in the collections of RMIT University, the Manningham Art Gallery, and the Fiskars Artist in Residence Collection, Finland.