Bringing together substantial bodies of work by four Adelaide-based ceramicists, Bricolage is essentially comprised of four ‘solo' exhibitions: Stayin' Alive by Gus Clutterbuck, Love in the time of bird flu by Marie Littlewood, Objectscapes by Lesa Farrant and Willow by Gerry Wedd. While the four exhibitions are clearly discreet, operating independently of each other, there are a number of discernible threads that they share. In particular, the works of Clutterbuck, Littlewood and Farrant reflect a number of shared strategies and interests: the use of decals and text, a concern with notions of function and non-function and an elegant, restrained aesthetic. These three artists also all employ the method of slip casting to transpose the most unlikely objects into porcelain. While Wedd might not share in these specific concerns, this is not to say that he is somehow the odd one out. All four bodies of work embody a sense of both humour and poignancy and, significantly, all four artists choose to inscribe their ceramics with images or text. In doing so, they offer four distinct propositions on the relationship between form and surface.

Thinking about the exhibition in even broader terms, one can identify another common thread running throughout Bricolage , this being the potential for an ostensibly decorative object to become charged with a different kind of intent, be it psychological, social, political or otherwise. In Gerry Wedd's case, unlocking this potential has become the artist's central premise. In Willow , the artist has appropriated the instantly recognisable motifs of willow pattern china and wields them purposefully and subversively. Wedd's use of the willow pattern seems to be governed by two main strategies. The first of these is isolating the key motifs from the willow pattern – dove, bridge, building, boat and the willow tree itself - and wrenching them into three dimensions. These new forms of cobalt decorated, hand-built clay are characterised by a delightful awkwardness, rather like a cartoon character that has been plucked from its native two-dimensions and transposed into a soft toy or over-sized theme park costume. The slippage that occurs in this translation from graphic image to three-dimensional form is curious indeed. Consider Wedd's reinterpretation of the willow pattern's apple tree motif, where the foliage and fruit have been amalgamated into strange, bulbous growths (and, in ‘Strange Fruit', occasionally replaced by skulls). Wedd's other key approach (and the much more interesting of the two) is using the willow pattern as a finish that pervades new and unexpected objects and entities, both historical and contemporary. Perhaps most notable are scenes of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib, still articulated in the familiar blue and white. Here Wedd's use of cobalt decoration ceases to be decorative; instead, it becomes aggressive hatching, that drips from his ‘Guard', ‘Hooded figure' and the human pyramid of ‘Aww gee!'. In Wedd's hands the willow pattern becomes a filter through which any image can pass. In doing so however, the image is irrevocably changed, its meaning and context, subtly (or, in some cases, drastically) shifted.

Gus Clutterbuck's work artfully weaves together elements of autobiography and social comment. Setting out from a very personal starting point, specifically his experiences as both an asthmatic and a smoker, Clutterbuck tackles a complex world of medical ethics and the myriad related issues (succinctly articulated by Karen Finch in her accompanying essay). In Stayin' Alive , a selection of loaded objects - cigarettes, inhalers, pills and pill packets, cocktail trays and medicine cups – are slip cast in bone china, porcelain and mid fire clay and configured in relationship to one another. The resulting scenarios seem to play out the fraught and intricate relationships between doctors, patients and the substances they imbibe (medicinal or otherwise). For all its autobiographical content, the work remains unflinchingly objective. In ‘Can't Stand Up for Falling Down', for example, the simple juxtaposition of cigarettes and inhalers conveys as a sense of grim foreboding and provokes a visceral response, comparable to the gruesome images recently branded across cigarette packets. In ‘Sharps' and ‘Drugs For Healthy People', Clutterbuck presents us with retro-cool cocktail trays bearing images seemingly excerpted from medical text books. These works sardonically suggest that for many medicine is no longer a matter of life and death, but rather, a lifestyle accessory. Similarly in ‘Balance of Power 1, 2 & 3' slip cast medicine cups are precariously stacked and variously melt, overflow and spill their contents, taking on an anthropomorphic quality and suggesting excess, decadence and a loss of control. It is in these instances, where Clutterbuck speaks to us in a highly physical, material language, that the work seems most rich in metaphor. The artist also makes use of text to convey his message, though perhaps not as successfully. Words such as ‘trust', ‘faith' and ‘hope' sporadically appear throughout the work, inscribed upon various forms. However, for the most part, the potency and clarity of Clutterbuck's objects is such that the text is rendered superfluous. Unfortunately, the text reads as a kind of ‘add-on', which fails to speak as poetically as the objects themselves, with one notable exception: packets of pills offering Beneficence in 500mg doses are perfectly at home amongst Clutterbuck's other biting commentaries.

Similarly, in Objectscapes we see Lesa Farrant working with a succinct vocabulary of forms – jelly moulds, cups, baskets and tiaras all transposed into porcelain – and also employing text with varying degrees of success. Issues of gender and domesticity come to the fore in this artist's work, but unfortunately in a number of instances the complexities of these issues are reduced to a rather obvious sentiment. Consider Farrant's slip cast jelly moulds emblazoned with ‘disappointment', ‘doubt' and ‘resentment' or her exquisitely detailed, slip trailed tiaras bearing the words ‘server', ‘resent' and ‘veneer'. In these instances, the text burdens the work with a regrettable heavy-handedness, seemingly at odds with the artist's finely honed sensitivity toward material and form.

Marie Littlewood Wrens 2006 porcelain, glaze, hand cut faux wood decal, 900 x 600mm, Photography: Danielle Schriever

In the brief artist statement accompanying her work, Marie Littlewood identifies Love in a time of bird flu as “an attempt to satisfy both the cynic and the sentimentalist within.” This sense of push and pull – a kind of emotional friction - appears again and again and characterises the artist's work. For example, in ‘Love and other bruises' and ‘Happy things', beakers and plates seemingly cover up their chips and dents with ‘band-aids' (in actuality, decals). These bittersweet works maintain an irrefutable cheerfulness despite their apparent history of (heart) breakage. In ‘you need to write, you need to call', familiar objects of communication become strangely muted. In this work a peculiar whittled bird sits atop a mail box mournfully awaiting mail. Nearby is a crudely fashioned ceramic telephone, its numbers blank; the whole scene evokes vast distance and great loneliness. However, these slightly forlorn works are frequently offset by moments of levity. There is a discernible gallows humour in ‘Love Nest', in which eight press moulded eggs spell out the title of the work in a quaint, wooden-log font and are poised above a bowl and whisk. This co-existence of comfort and threat seems typical of the artist's work. Amongst her flocks of crockery, with their images of birds, boats and anchors, we feel at once at home and far from home. Like Max in ‘Where The Wild Things Are', Littlewood's comfortable, domestic milieu soon gives way to an epic journey. Each work is, perhaps, a little piece of home one could take on a dangerous voyage…charms and talismans with all the poignancy and poetry of H-O-L-D F-A-S-T tattooed across a sailor's knuckles.