For ceramic artist Jenna Catchpole, clay is more than a material. It is a thread back to her mother, Jennene, a potter whose influence remains central to Catchpole’s practice and her exhibition, Her Flame, My Hands.
The exhibition returns to Vacant Assembly, 266 Montague Road, West End, from 1 to 13 September 2026. The opening event will be held on Saturday, 5 September, from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., with speeches at 3:00 p.m.
A practice shaped by memory
Catchpole grew up around clay, introduced to it by her mother. After Jennene died, ceramics became difficult territory and Catchpole stepped away from the practice. She returned to the wheel in 2013, studying with Ray Cavill at Clayschool Brisbane, and gradually built a body of work that would take her into atmospheric woodfiring.
Her Flame, My Hands emerged from that history. First staged as a solo exhibition in 2025, it began as a response to grief, but the project has since become something broader: an annual reckoning with memory, inheritance and the ways creative habits can outlive the people who first passed them on.
There is no attempt here to tidy grief into a neat conclusion. Catchpole’s work is interested in what remains unresolved — the gestures, instincts and memories that continue to surface long after loss has become part of everyday life.
Fire leaves its own record
Every piece in this year’s exhibition was fired in an Anagama kiln at Middle Pocket in New South Wales. It is a demanding process, with the kiln fed continuously with wood over several days as heat, flame and ash move around the work.
Unlike an electric kiln, where conditions can be closely controlled, an Anagama firing leaves room for chance. Ash settles on surfaces, flames flash across forms and the position of a vessel can alter its colour and texture. Australian Wood Firers United notes that wood-fired kilns can reach temperatures above 1300 degrees Celsius, with the firing itself requiring sustained attention around the clock.
The unpredictability suits Catchpole’s subject. The work enters the kiln made but emerges changed by forces beyond the maker’s control. In Her Flame, My Hands, that physical transformation becomes an understated parallel to grief itself.
A conversation carried forward
Catchpole’s ceramics are marked by carved surfaces, tactile forms and the natural effects of wood ash. Yet the technical skill never overwhelms the personal story. The exhibition’s quiet strength lies in the sense that making has become a conversation between generations.
Jennene’s presence is not represented through literal portraiture or memorial objects. It is there in the material, in the repeated motion of hands shaping clay, and in the decision to return each year to a body of work that refuses to treat remembrance as static.
Her Flame, My Hands is open Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and Friday from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Entry to the opening event is free and all are welcome.
Published 20-Aug-2026
