Mother Tongue : Avital Sheffer

Intricately worked ceramic vessels, richly inscribed with patterns, symbols and fragments of language, evoke a sense of longing. These are works by Avital Sheffer, whose sculptural practice draws upon the cultural histories of her ancestral heritage and her own experience of migration. Her work explores the ways in which memory, language and identity are carried across places and generations.

Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery is pleased to present Mother Tongue, a new exhibition bringing together a group of Sheffer’s new ceramic sculptures. Based on the North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, Sheffer draws upon her ancestry to create works that traverse the fertile territories of history, mythology and archaeology.

Sheffer’s vessels possess a powerful physical presence, while refined surfaces show extraordinary intricacy: dry glazes and engobes, printed imagery and text, and occasional glimmers of metallic lustre. Fragments of ancient Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic script intertwine with ornamental and archaeological references, appearing across the vessels like traces of inherited knowledge. Language becomes both legible and elusive — something remembered, carried and transformed. The works draw upon Sheffer’s sustained engagement with the material cultures of the ancient world. Ceramics, glass, metalware and calligraphy provide a rich visual vocabulary through which she considers the persistence of human experience across time. As Sheffer observes they: “employ universal aesthetic principles, yet reveal intimate aspects of human idiosyncrasies and needs that are relevant to the present.” This balance between control and contingency extends into the making itself. 

Working with an earthenware clay rich in sand, Sheffer begins each large-scale vessel by visualising a curve, from which she creates a clay prototype for the lower section of the imagined form. This is cast in lightweight plaster to produce a mould that becomes the shared starting point for a family of vessels. From this common origin, each work gradually acquires its individuality through the hand-building technique of coiling.

Their silhouettes can suggest archaeological artefacts or ceremonial objects.  Yet, Sheffer transforms her sources into a visual language that is unmistakably contemporary and deeply personal. In Mother Tongue, the vessel becomes more than a container. It operates as body and bearer of memory — a form through which languages and histories may be held even when they have become fragmented or distant.