Ether Pod, 2024

Art is my intrinsic language. I like to create by settling on an intention, drawn from experience, memories and traumas, curiosities and preoccupations, and often it comes with a sense of purpose. Each piece comes to life, personifying this intention. They have personalities, and I see them as ‘they’ rather than as inanimate. Echoing a human experience, my practice requires focus and sensitivity so I can listen to the medium and respond to its inclinations and boundaries. My vessels represent the balance between strength and fragility, power and vulnerability, a link to my femininity and the matrix of creation. These forms are my therapy, equipping me with a language to reconcile my trauma. It provides me with a platform to challenge and push myself in both the physical nature of construction, the limitations of the medium, and my own emotional and psychological healing and growth. They explore balance, movement, intuition and control. Often referencing a pod, bud, bloom, or womb-like chalice, these forms are symbolic of human genesis and the celebration of a feminine prerogative. Ether Pod’s form rises from a floating foundation into a strong, reliable, capacious structure. Its lightly marred surface is marked with dark, chaotic, inverted, free-flowing textures that rapidly recede to a smooth, poised, restrained channel. She is a reflection of the harmony between turmoil and composure, disturbance and purpose.

Alex Linden is a re-emerging artist living and working on the Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia. She received an Advanced Diploma in Applied and Visual Arts with a ceramics major in 1999 (North Adelaide School of Art), followed by an Honours Degree in Fine and Visual Arts, majoring in drawing and painting (University of South Australia, 2002), then went on to study education, working as a secondary school teacher and subsequently as a communications manager in the wine industry. 2021 was a year that brought challenge, change and clarity to Alex as she found herself irrevocably drawn back to the studio to explore and create a space where she feels innately herself.
Her works emanate a quiet maturity and an obsession with honing her craft, often resulting in immense and voluminous forms representative of her connection with the feminine. Evident in her work is a sense of play with texture, balance, strength & fragility and a detailed, curious nature.
She creates and teaches in her home-based studio, selling work directly through her website and social media. She also creates bodies of sculptural and functional wares for retail in Adelaide’s Jam Factory and local gallery, The Fleurieu Arthouse. Her piece ‘Mother of Pearl’ won first prize in the indoor category of the 2024 Brighton Jetty Sculpture Competition, and she continues to work toward creating a body of work to exhibit.