Anita McIntyre graduated from the ANU School of Art in 1976. She is currently a Visiting Fellow at the ANU, lecturer in Ceramics and Sub-Dean of the ANU School of Art. She has been a long and active member of CraftACT: Craft and Design Centre and the National Ceramics Conferences, chairing the Committee for the 8th Conference. Anita has travelled extensively overseas, but in particular across outback Australia, finding inspiration in the spectacular landscapes of the inland. Anita’s work is represented in collections throughout Australia and overseas, including Darwin Museum and Gallery; Renwick Alliance Group, USA; and the Canberra Museum and Gallery.

“The major source for my imagery is the Australian landscape. My approach to the landscape is basically to abstract from the whole what I consider to be the essentials. My view of the landscape is not specifically a realistic one but one which supplies the viewer with sufficient visual material to enable them to involve themselves in conceptually ‘completing’ what they see.” Regular and extensive travel to remote parts of Australia, in particular the Kimberleys, is the inspiration behind Anita’s evocative imagery. Variations in the rich ochre tones are dictated by the heat of the kiln, just as the geology of the desert was informed by heat: “My new body of work, which includes framed monoprints, has been developed to express the geological plates, which were part of primeval Gondwana some 3 billion years ago. This ancient landscape, joined together by volcanic action, erosion and silica extrusions that were the welding of the Great South Land, has been the basis of my work for some time.” Rock forms and fossils are an important aspect of Anita’s work.

Design in the true sense of the word has always been integral to my Art practice. If I consider Design as a preconceived plan or preliminary drawing, then it is an essential process. The preliminary sketches may not always represent the finished object as the processes and the material will determine the final outcome. More often than not the drawings will represent the embryonic idea or the source material and inspiration. Often in artistic practice the ideas, drawings and notations are years ahead of their realisation, jotted down so as not to lose sight of the inspiration. These drawings, referred to when time and circumstance allow, enable one to further explore the ideas and the inspiration. Some material practice dictates evolution and development of idea, design and resolution.

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