STORY BY MAHMOOD FAZAL, PHOTO BY TEAGAN GLENANE

In The Beauty of Everyday Things, Soetsu Yanagi writes, “A pattern is the depiction of the fundamental nature of an object, it is what remains of an object's form after all that is unnecessary had been removed.”

Ruby Pilven is a Ballarat-based ceramic artist who creates dazzling porcelain ceramics riddled in coloured patterns. Her work is a contemporary twist on the Japanese technique called Nerikomi, a name derived from the traditional technique of “pressing colours into” the clay.  

When Ruby was young, a ceramic artist named Koji Hoashi lived with her potter parents, Janine and Peter Pilven, in Ballarat. “He was Dad’s student,” explains Ruby, “Dad loves Japanese ceramics. [Koji] taught mum and dad how to cook Japanese food and everything.”

Ruby concentrates her ceramic practice on the Nerikomi technique. “It's just fun and it's full of colour and pattern. It’s all about building with coloured clay - layering and structuring it into patterns,” says Ruby. “Being able to do that in a way where you can control it, without painting it on or glazing it on. It’s really striking.”

This technique explores Ruby’s long fascination and relationship with Japanese culture and her connection with the contemporary Australian art scene. Her work tessellates between rigid technique and the spontaneity of chance.

“There’s an immediacy with painting, because it can happen straight away. Potters can labour over something for three weeks or three months and it could all just go to shit and explode in the kiln,” says Ruby. “So there's that level of unexpectedness and I think that's what makes it exciting. But it's also very, very challenging and sometimes incredibly disappointing."

After graduating high school, Ruby moved to Melbourne to study Visual Art and Business at Monash University. “Ceramics dwindled in the 90s because universities cut most of their courses and there was an increase in glass and other mediums,” she explains. “But it’s really strong now. The arts community in Ballarat is really strong and it’s getting stronger because of the initiatives that are highlighting all the creatives that live here.” 

As well as practicing art, for the past four years Ruby has been teaching art theory and ceramics to students at Ballarat Grammar School. “I think people don't realise it's not just making art, like I'm gonna become a painter or something, it's a whole philosophy and appreciation of being creative.” 

Ruby wants her students to absorb everything behind the artwork and the artist. “Thinking creatively is so much more important than just being conservative in your thinking, like you’ve got to be critical, but you've also got to be creative in your thinking.”

Ruby’s creativity is illustrated in the kaleidoscopic offering of her work, a broad range of jewellery, plates, bowls and incense holders. “I can express myself and it just makes me feel good. I just love colour and pattern and like being able to do that in a daily job. It's exciting and it's a nice way to live,” asserts Ruby. “Art’s amazing because it’s everywhere in life - it doesn’t discriminate. It can be about anything. It can be about nothing. It can just be pretty.”

Ruby Pilven Ceramics                                                     

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