Jess Nicholson’s Pakaru I, Pakaru II and Poutū all looking beautiful in the late afternoon sun.
Whaka Oho Rahi uku, salvaged glass and ceramic from Whaka Oho Rahi and artist’s studio (all 2026)
These works and others are now available to view on our website (link in bio)
@j___nicholson
We were fortunate to be featured in an editorial for the Otago Daily Times last week, ahead of our current exhibition, Holding Space. Below is an excerpt highlighting the practice and inspiration of one of our exhibiting artists, Jess Nicholson.
A recent residency also inspired Jess Nicholson’s latest work. The 2025 Te Uru Portage Ceramic Awards merit award winner, who strives to avoid mined or imported materials in their practice, has used local clay, reclaimed ceramics and glass from Te Awa Ōtākou (Otago Harbour) in their latest work for the exhibition.
The works are an extension of pieces they began while taking part in their Caselberg Creative Connections residency last year.
‘‘I am combining indigenous and introduced materials using the mosaic process I’ve developed, and embracing the ways these materials accept and reject one another.’’
Unlike their previous work, which has been generally high-fired in a reduction atmosphere with real fire and rock glazes, the new work is made with a low-fired local terracotta and all the glaze comes from reclaimed ceramic and glass gathered from Whaka Oho Rahi (Broad Bay).
‘‘I was inspired by the local red clay of Whaka Oho Rahi and the mass of ceramic and glass shards found along the harbour’s edge.’’
After three months looking at the relationship between a natural, indigenous material interacting with introduced, human-processed materials, Nicholson realised the intertidal species had accepted the shards as perfectly good surfaces for home-making.
‘‘This made me rethink some of my perceptions around material extraction, use and disposal, and what it might say about post-colonial relationships to land.’’
- Rebecca Fox for the ODT (Ngā mihi Rebecca 🙏)
You can view Jess’s biography on our website (link in bio) A full catalogue for the exhibition will be available on our website soon.
Featured work (left to right)
Kohinga, Pakaru I, Pakaru II and Poutū - reclaimed white clay, salvaged glass and ceramic from Whaka Oho Rahi
@j___nicholson
Opening Event next Friday April 24th at 5pm
Jess Nicholson / Lucy Hunter / Locke Jean-Luc Unhold / Mollie Schollum
Please join us on Friday, April 24th at 5pm for the opening of Holding Space, a group exhibition at Hutch.
Holding Space brings together four local ceramicists whose distinct practices explore what it means to hold, and to be held, through clay. Across a vibrant range of techniques, surfaces, and forms, each artist approaches the vessel not only as an object, but as a gesture of care, presence, and connection… one that exists in a delicate tension between fragility and endurance.
From bold, expressive structures to more intimate, figurative and tactile works, the exhibition moves between containment and openness, strength and softness, stability and imbalance. This interplay introduces a quiet tension that runs through the works, where forms appear to stretch, press, or resist their own limits. These pieces hold more than material; they carry traces of touch, memory, and process, inviting viewers to consider both the visible and the latent tensions within and around them.
In this shared space, clay becomes a language for both individuality and dialogue. Each work offers its own interpretation of holding, whether physical, emotional, or symbolic whilst also negotiating the tension between autonomy and relation. Surfaces pull against structure, gestures hover between control and release, and each piece contributes to a collective rhythm of form, colour, and energy that feels both cohesive and unsettled.
Together, they create an environment that is at once dynamic and grounded, where making is an act of attention and where even the most solid forms seem to contain an internal tension… something quietly held, yet never entirely resolved.
Holding Space is an invitation to pause and to reflect on what we carry, what contains us, and how, through form, we navigate the tensions that shape our connections to ourselves and to one another.
Last Friday we opened Jess Nicholson's solo exhibition "Ka maumahara te uku (the clay remembers)".
In this show, Nicholson continues to explore recycled, reclaimed and collected whenua materials.
We cherish our relationship with Ngāi Tūāhuriri and are grateful for their support and warm welcome to Jess and our guests with their beautiful mihi whakatau. Special thanks to our wonderful volunteers and gallery hospitality partners: @threeboysbrewery , @drinkalmighty , new partners @vita_wines and @lele.wine 💛
"Ka maumahara te uku (the clay remembers)" is on until 17 May. Exhibition opening capture by the talented @b_lrl 🌿
Nau mai haere mai ki @cocatoimoroki i tēnei pō!
Come warm the space and have a drink to celebrate this new body of work and my first ever show in Ngāi Tūāhūriri rohe tonight 😌✨
💙 Whetū
💙 Jess Nicholson
Second photograph, from left to right
💙 Kā Whetū 1
💙 Jess Nicholson
💙 Kā Whetū 2
💙 Jess Nicholson
💙 Kā Whetū 3
💙 Jess Nicholson
Dimensions:
Whetū:
420 x 250 x 50mm
Kā Whetū 1:
260 x 80 x 26mm
Kā Whetū 2:
265 x 85 x 30mm
Kā Whetū 3:
260 x 90 x 25mm
These lovely ceramic works are made from uku foraged from Whaka Oho Rahi
(Broad Bay), reclaimed ceramic and glass. These works begun as ideas during Jess' residency with the @caselbergtrust . To me (Piupiu), these works remind me of starlight streaming down over the earth on a clear night.
A wonderful object you can make a bid on. Just message us on instagram or email [email protected] with the artist's name and artwork title. The auction closes on Saturday 11th of April, so get your bids in soon.
Toitū te ao toi, toitū te mauri tau! Bring some starlight into your home💙
We are delighted to invite you to "Ka maumahara te uku (the clay remembers)", a solo exhibition by Jess Nicholson.
Clay remembers being pounded flat or rolled into a ball, in the same way that it remembers being the basalt rocks of a mighty mauka or the silt swept along the bottom of a braided awa.
In this solo exhibition, Nicholson continues to explore recycled, reclaimed and collected whenua materials through laborious and intimate ceramic processes to create the work.
They pay particular attention to the non-linear transformation of the materials - considering this as a metaphor for the process of reconnecting, belonging, and feeling at home in one’s body and land.
They investigate this tension and discomfort through the old pottery adage ‘clay remembers’. This saying, usually used in a technical context, also speaks to the te ao Māori belief that we are born from, belong, and ultimately will return to the land.
Opening night
Join us at 5.30pm on Friday 10 April for a mihi whakatau to welcome artist Jess Nicholson and open this exhibition.
"Ka maumahara te uku (the clay remembers)" is on at Ō Papa Gallery until 17 May.
Image caption: details of artwork part of the exhibition, courtesy of the artist.
Finally! - an answer to the question "what kind of art do you make?"
Huge mihi to my friends in the ceramics dept at @dunedin_school_of_art for the informal residency over summer. There's nothing I love more than pretending to be a young, hot student over and over again 😎
RUAPARA by Jess Nicholson (Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) combines local clay with salvaged glass and ceramic shards collected from Whaka Oho Rahi Broad Bay. The forms, pulled from the night sky, encourage us to reflect on our habits of consumption, consider what we leave behind, and how these things change the whenua for those who come after us.
Jess was the Caselberg Trust’s 2025 Creative Connections artist in residence.
The show runs until the 8th of March.
@j___nicholson@caselbergtrust
