ARTIST TALK // Lino Alvarez Carrasco

Hear from Hill End Impressions artist Lino Alvarez Carrasco

Hill End Impressions

Mexican born ceramicist Lino Alvarez Carrasco describes himself as a landscape potter. Since moving his studio and practice 26 years ago from Newtown, Sydney to Hill End, his personal work has traversed into abstract impressions of the simplicity and complexity of the surrounding landscape. “The landscape in my work is not literal, it is an expression of a subconscious experience that, through the forms, the application of glazes and firing techniques, is realised”. The influence of the landscape binds the conceptual to the physical whilst encouraging experimentation with technique, process and diversity of form.

Earthenware clay has been used by potters for millennia and has been omnipresent in Alvarez Carrasco’s practice since moving to Australia from Mexico in 1981, it is easily worked allowing for greater diversity of size and shape and once fired produces a spectrum of colour as rich as the landscape from which it is produced. This connection to place is inherent in the decision-making process and further underpins the scope of expression for the artist. The rich hues produced by making his own clay and glaze recipes, sourced directly from his property La Paloma at Hill End, are determined by the presence of mineral impurities and the type of firing technique used.

Raku is one such technique, an ancient Japanese process in which glazed ceramics are smothered by a flammable material whilst still red hot from the kiln, the process starves the oxygen and creates unexpected colours in the finished glaze or a matte black surface on unglazed objects. “I first discovered (raku firing) whilst studying in California, and which for some reason, I identified with, as it struck me as being an example of pure spontaneous art”
Hill End Impressions presents a collection of vessels produced during 2023, examining the artists physical and spiritual connection to the landscape of Hill End.

Image: Lino Alvarez Carrasco in the studio. Photo: Bill Moseley