Fine Figures - Adelaide Matters Oct 2008

Judith Rolevink's delicate ceramic figures are quite a departure from the bold sculptures she usually works on.
However, cheeky and candid glimpses of children at play are still the focus of her work.
"They're still about children and the things they do - making friends, drawing, falling over," she says.
Judith's past exhibitions- at the Adelaide Centre for the ARTS, in the city, and at Art Images, Norwood - have featured gymnasts and dancers cast in bronze but this time she has drawn on her ceramics background to prepare work for a show at Artistic License, in North Adelaide.
She says the small pieces have provided great contrast, though no fewer challenges, to her major project for the year, preparing a life-size bronze sculpture of Mary MacKillop and two children for the Catholic Church. The sculpture, destined for Victoria Square, will be unveiled early next year.
In preparing her small fired clay figures, Judith has been experimenting with casein paint, a milk derivative that dries to a matt finish.
"I saw Judy Fox's (American ceramic sculptor) children sculptures and she uses the technique," she says. "Over time the paint becomes waterproof - it's intriguing." Judith goes to painstaking effort to ensure her figures look realistic and she says the paint helps enhance the work, providing skin tone and highlighting features and clothing.
While it is a way of adding something new to her work, Judith says it also reflects her current fascination with artists who use colour on ceramics.

Adelaide Matters – Arts Oct 2008