Prue Venables: Sempre
Prue Venables: Sempre
From 18 October 2025
Prue Venables is one of Australia’s most accomplished ceramicists, with a demonstrated mastery of porcelain. Practising since 1977, her work has evolved from traditional functional objects to groups of abstract sculptural entities that inventively play with form and space.
Discussing her practice, Venables says:
"Science and music led me to ceramics. I’m fascinated by the beauty of functional objects at the core of our lives. I love feeling clay in my hands. Decades of experimentation with high-temperature porcelain (and now metal) across studio and industrial domains inform my practice as I search for elegance and harmony.
Through throwing, I create forms to be altered and reconstructed, procedures in this material that are challenging and risky, requiring great skill and precision, yet with results that appear simple and deny the inherent complexity of their origin.
The grouping of objects, always a central premise of my work, facilitates allusions to musical and narrative themes."
LISTEN | SAM Talks: In the Studio with Prue Venables
In this episode of In the Studio, SAM’s Communications Officer Mikela Guseli visits ceramic artist Prue Venables in her Castlemaine studio.
Known for her refined porcelain forms, Venables reflects on a practice shaped by discipline, repetition, and a deep sensitivity to materials. Originally trained in science and music, Venables speaks about the moment she encountered clay, and how its tactile, responsive nature offered a new way of thinking and making — and how learning metalsmithing has amplified her practice.
Recorded in the artist’s studio, this conversation offers a quiet insight into the processes, ideas, and philosophies that sit behind Venables’ work, and the enduring influence of music — where rhythm, structure and expression continue to inform her approach.
About the Artist
Prue Venables (b. 1954 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom) is based in Castlemaine, VIC, and was selected as the Australian Design Centre’s ninth Living Treasure, Master of Australian Craft; World Craft Council Asia Pacific Region Craft Master; and finalist in the 2023 Loewe Craft Prize, New York. She is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London, and is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney.
Featured artwork: Prue Venables, Esme's Dressing Table (detail), 201. Photo courtesy the artist and Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert. Artwork © the artist
Location: Level 2 Showcase
Free
