Inspired by Homer's Odyssey, Kirsten Coelho's Ithaca reflects on the Ancient Greek text through a series of serene and graceful porcelain forms that demonstrate her distinct ceramic practice.

For Coelho, Odysseus’ ten-year journey home to the island of Ithaca represents the elusive nature of home as it is abstracted by time, distance and the inevitability of change. Drawing on the physicality of Grecian ceramics, Coelho’s vessels call to mind timeless notions of transformation and longing, as well as the lifespan and significance of material culture.

Coelho’s Ithaca reveals the artist’s increasing sensitivity towards modes of display, extending from research undertaken during an Arts South Australia Fellowship into the way perception and understanding of objects is altered by historical and cultural context.

Kirsten Coelho is a University of South Australia alumna and the feature artist of the 2020 South Australian Living Artist (SALA) Festival. The 2020 SALA monograph dedicated to her practice by Wendy Walker will be available at Samstag throughout the exhibition.

Ithaca is accompanied by a digital catalogue featuring an essay by Joanna Kitto, Associate Curator at the Samstag Museum of Art.