b. 1988 in Sydney, Australia
Lives and works in Sydney, Australia
Alexandra Standen is an Australian artist who explores the potential of clay as a ceramic form; subverting thelong-held association between ceramics and utilitarian function.
Standen makes things with her hands. The repetitive gesture of ‘pinching’ her hand-built forms is as much conceptual as it is an act of realisation. The conversation between materiality and form is ever evolving with intuition and experimentation in equal parts leading to the creation of these forms.
Standen’s extensive body of work speaks to the process of making work in porcelain as well as ‘feeling uneasy’ around objects of fragile or precarious nature. Ceramic objects hold a functional quality and yet there is an anxiety associated with ceramic objects held within a gallery. We place vessels on a plinth, or behind glass and point to the fact that they are precious or historically valuable without addressing the ongoing narrative in these objects.
With graduate and postgraduate degrees from The National Art School (2011) and UNSW Art and Design (2018) respectively, Standen has also undertaken a number of artist residencies over the last 4 years at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, Tel Aviv, Geneva, Istanbul the UK and rural NSW and Northern Territory. Winner of the Sidney Myer Award for Ceramics, Shepparton Art Museum 2012, Standen was a finalist in awards including the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, Gold Coast Ceramic Award and the Wynne Prize.
Collections: Shepparton Art Museum Art Gallery of Western Australia Australian Catholic University Monash University Foundation Artbank
