Illuminated by Fire

Kathryn Portelli worked with the community to design and create personalised ashes vessels which were exhibited together with seven illuminated sculptures.

This project brought together a collection of remarkable sculptures in Australia’s first ever exhibition dedicated to vessels made especially to contain the cremated ashes of people and places.

This is a body of work that provokes thought about what it means to represent a life artistically, encompassing eight individually personal objects rich in storytelling detail.

The project launched Sunday November 7 at 2.00pm at TJ Scotts, 5 Piper St Kyneton.

At Fed Square, the ashes vessels were displayed in the BMW Edge, around the walkway facing out towards the Yarra. See the program here: Kyneton program

Kathryn has been professionally trained in ceramics and glass at Chisholm Institute in the 1980s and spent three years working in two commercial studios in Boston USA.

In 2010, Kathryn received the Regional Arts Australia ‘Outstanding Achievement’ award for her volunteer efforts coordinating the AFTER mural in Kyneton, following the Black Saturday fires of 2009. The AFTER Black Saturday Memorial is an 11 metre mural featuring 280 tiles with inclusions of donated material from fire affected residents and the broader local, interstate and international communities. The project was supported by a $2,500 Arts Quick Response Recovery Fund grant from Arts Victoria and a $10,700 donation from the Helen McPherson-Smith trust.