Since her success in last year’s Portage Ceramic Awards, where she became the youngest artist to receive the top prize, Bridie Henderson has continued to develop the narrative of her ‘Feather’ works. Henderson’s translucent, delicately carved porcelain works display meticulous attention to detail and an innate understanding of the foibles of her medium. When lit, the porcelain comes alive with a diffuse glow; the artist’s use of illumination is subtle and is in keeping with her fine carving and patterning.

Referencing the use of feathers in Native American cultures, Henderson also examines the mark-making used in these diverse and complex pottery traditions. While alluding specifically to this (south-western) Native American patterning in the first instance, the symbols she uses are seen in ceramic practices throughout history and across cultures. Universal forms such as the spiral, zig-zag, arrow and circle are combined to create a symbolic language for her totemic objects.

Pairs of oversized porcelain feathers display black and white designs that spill through and over the feathery background; whorls, circles and triangles play with negative and positive space and morph in size and shape. Evocative of anthropological curiosities and fetish items, Henderson does not provide a back story to her pieces.

The feather necklets suggest the ghosts of the wearers and memories of ceremony but like curiosities in a Wunderkammer they are shown dislocated from their histories and narratives, and viewers are left to fill in the gaps with imagined stories. Mounted and framed, the origins of the works are concealed and the hand of the collector as well as that of the creator is evidenced.

Fletched with real feathers and featuring delicately carved porcelain arrowheads and wooden shafts, sets of arrows with matching quivers accompany the vitrine-encased feather works. The quiver vessels are engraved with detailed images of both hunter and prey, extending the idea of totem items and linking back to Henderson’s research into the aboriginal cultures of North America.