Sallie Portnoy
Girls on the Avenue 2022
ceramic
40x250115cm
$2000
about
the
work
These ceramic gals seemingly engaged in conversation, express ideas of body language, well-being, and connection. They have emerged from a period where we have just begun to heal from devastating bushfires to then be isolated and distanced during COVID-19. In these times disconnection and isolation has escalated, yet, as often in periods of disaster, renewed intimacy has also flourished as well as a heightened awareness that the reality of climate change is not in some distant future but upon us now. The glaze treatment references the bush fires with its flashes of fiery orange and charred black coal surface breaking into a green symbolic of regeneration and regrowth. I am attempting to imbue these pieces to convey feelings of hope and faith and connection in a time when we are so challenged by the harm we have created to this planet.
bio
Sallie Portnoy is a prolific interdisciplinary artist working in glass, clay, metals, and mixed media. Her background in ceramics informs her work in glass, which has earned recognition and representation internationally in private and permanent collections. Portnoy studied ceramics at university of Manitoba and NSCAD in Canada and graduated from Cofa (BA ceramics) and SCA, Sydney University (MSA glass). Portnoy has had numerous solo exhibitions and exhibits regularly in outdoor public art shows. She has been the recipient of several major awards and public art commissions both in the private sector and by various community councils. She has taught workshops in Australia, Canada, Turkey, and in U.S. at Corning Museum of Glass, Urban Glass NY and Pilchuck, Seattle. and lives, works and teaches on the northern beaches of Sydney, from her Gspot Glass studio.
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