Kaz’s recent ceramic works are layered with slips, pigments, metal oxides and glazes to develop complex, evocative surfaces. Her work is about weathering, decay, brokenness, and the wear that happens with the passing of time. Kaz seeks to capture the sublime beauty that can be glimpsed in the remnants of these changes. Within her exploration of the transformation of materials by the elements and time, Kaz recalled long ago finding a fragment of green metal meat safe at a farm tip that had been oxidised and patinated. She secreted this away in a box filled with found treasures, forgotten until a recent encounter with an intact meat safe in a museum. Filet is a response to that meat safe as well as the memory of being a much younger person finding that treasured fragment. This work aims to capture the affective quality of this recollection.
Kaz Davis is a Sydney based artist who lives and works on Bidjigal land. She has been working primarily with clay for the past seven years to make sculptural and functional forms. Before embracing clay, Kaz made sculptural works from bronze, copper and steel with patinated surfaces, in addition to photographic works. Kaz completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW in 1991 (majoring in photography), and an Advanced Diploma of Fine Arts at Sydney Gallery School, Meadowbank TAFE (majoring in sculpture) in 2003.
Kaz has exhibited widely in group shows and prize exhibitions. Her ceramic pieces have been included in several curated group exhibitions, most recently at Brunswick Street Gallery (Melbourne) in 2021, and Gallery 152 (York, WA) in 2019, and earlier in the Salon des Refuses, at SH Ervin Gallery (Sydney) in 2003. Kaz was a finalist in the North Queensland Ceramic Awards and Meroogal Women’s Art Prize (NSW) in 2020 and 2022; Little Things Art Prize (NSW) in 2018, 2019 and 2022; National Emerging Art Prize, 2021; Gosford Art Prize (NSW) in 2018; and Woollahra Sculpture Prize (NSW) in 2002. She was awarded an Australia Council grant in 2021 to support the development of new work.
