Homegrown
NATALIE POPOVSKI’S CERAMIC SCULPTURES ARE BOLD REIMAGININGS OF EVERYDAY OBJECTS AND ICONIC AUSTRALIAN BRANDS.
WORDS RACHEL WHITE
ARTIST NATALIE POPOVSKI NEVER SET OUT to work with ceramics. “For years I was doing this body of work, as a painter, where I would go into the homes of strangers and paint their insignificant corners of mess,” says Natalie, 32. “They were still life paintings, but they were also indirect portraits of people.” During a solo show of her still lifes at the Margaret Olley Art Centre in 2022 at Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah, Natalie was inspired to create a more immersive experience for her audience. “I wanted to be able to pull out some of the items from the paintings, but I had no idea how to do that,” she says. “Then someone recommended slip casting, so I YouTubed it and taught myself.”