My ceramic practice is shaped by my southern African roots—specifically, the Namibian landscape of my upbringing—and by Australia, my adopted home since migrating here in my thirties. This dual identity informs everything I create: vessels that embody the tension between belonging and displacement, memory and transformation. My work draws on liminal forms and aesthetics—physical, visual, and conceptual shapes and forms that exist on a threshold, representing the "in-between" or a transition from one state, place, or identity to another.

Building on these ideas of duality and liminality, I turn to the ancient Japanese technique of Nerikomi and intentional layering, constructing forms that mirror the complexity of identity itself. Using the ancient Japanese technique of Nerikomi and intentional layering, I build forms that mirror the complexity of identity itself. The optical depth, repetition, and stratification inherent to this method become metaphors for how we construct ourselves across cultures and borders. Surface becomes narrative; pattern becomes psychology.

"The Sum of Their Parts" explores how identity is assembled from these fragments—cultural inheritance, lived experience, memory, and choice. Drawing inspiration from the women of Namibia’s Himba tribe, whose elaborate adornments of ochre clay, jewellery, and hairstyles function as visual languages of identity and status, these vessels embody the idea that we are composites: layered, accumulating meaning through what we carry and what we shed. Each feminine form investigates how multicultural identities are constructed across borders, how we define ourselves through the parts we choose to reveal, and how female social identity evolves within—and resists—patriarchal structures.

This piece is apart of the 2026 International Women's Day exhibition 'Her Voice: Stories of Strength & Identity'.