photo by John Cliff
Jan Downes
AFTERIMAGE
7-29 March 2026
OPENING/MEET THE ARTIST Saturday 7 March, 11am – 5pm ALL WELCOME
MEET THE ARTIST Saturday 28 March 11am – 2pm with ARTIST TALK at 1pm
The afternoon sun floods my west-facing studio. My work is precise and demands concentration; I pause to rest my eyes. Behind my eyelids, intensely coloured forms and jagged lines appear. These residual impressions are called afterimages: negative images that surface after prolonged exposure to a bright stimulus.
This body of work grows from that phenomenon, extending the afterimage beyond vision to consider the inner, multisensory responses that follow contact with the world. I approach the mould as a receptive body—a listening device, a recorder of pressure and presence. Within it, translations occur: between the touched and the felt, the projected and the seen.
My making is grounded in the material intimacy of fabric and porcelain, two materials linked by their shared states of softness and vulnerability. I stitch forms in cloth and suspend them in space, allowing them to become the mould. Into these I pour porcelain slip. The fabric is then removed or burned away, leaving fired forms that retain the memory of the cloth—its textures, folds, and gravity.
My practice has long been in porcelain and restrained palettes of white, earthtones, and blue. In this work, colour and line intensify. Bold hues emerge not as decoration, but as residue: impressions that linger, and reappear, long after the initial contact has passed.
How do you find your subject matter?
Lately I’ve drawn inspiration from visual and tactile memory as well as from natural phenomena. In the studio I do a lot of experimentation. I test new approaches to making forms and enjoy attempting to push porcelain to its limit. I like to think that I work in collaboration with the clay.
What techniques do you use?
My making is currently focused on the shared qualities of fabric and soft clay. I sew molds from fabric, into which I pour liquid porcelain. The resultant fired forms capture the fine details of stitches and the weave and fall of the fabric. With some pieces I aim for translucency, others I enjoy airbrushing with bright colours.
Who are your influences?
The natural world has consistently been my greatest influence. But I also draw influence from historical and contemporary artists across all media, as well as fashion, textiles, architecture and design.
Presented together, the works of Jan Downes and Kara Wood create a dynamic exchange in their March 2026 exhibition at Straitjacket. While Jan ‘considers the inner, multisensory responses that follow contact with the world’, Kara examines how ‘who we are shifts depending on context, relationships, and perception’. Their practices intersect through porcelain and textile assemblage, yet diverge in approach: Wood builds upon the fabric structure, while Downes allows the work to emerge from within it.
Jan Downes’ Afterimage represents ‘negative impressions that surface after prolonged exposure to a bright stimulus as a lens for understanding the self’. Exhibited in the front gallery, the presentation is both intimate and impactful. Each piece reveals its own intricate qualities, while together they converse, creating a cohesive sense of connection and belonging. The Sydney-based artist ‘sews moulds from fabric, into which she pours liquid porcelain’, producing forms that feel suspended in time. Her bold use of colour stands in striking contrast to the soft, gentle tones of white.
Kara Wood’s Nice to Meet You extends the exploration of her female ancestral line, ‘examining femininity, identity, and lived experience across social and historical contexts.’ The Girls begin as plaster-covered cardboard forms, translated into seamstress-style patterns and tufted thread by thread into vibrant, tactile works. Part vessel, part body, they suggest movement and presence caught in a quiet dance with the viewer. The Newcastle-based artist’s work, Joy, offers a simple yet resonant reminder: ‘If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, give into it. The Girls act as larger expressions of Wood’s porcelain ceramics, reflecting a more controlled process while remaining deeply narrative. Her exhibition explores the joy and intimacy shared between women, inviting moments of connection and emotional openness.
Together, Afterimage and Nice to Meet You form a dialogue between interior and exterior experience, control and emergence, structure and intuition. Through their distinct yet complementary approaches, Downes and Wood invite viewers to consider how identity is both shaped and revealed held within material, memory, and the quiet exchanges between body and form.
– Mariah Brettell, March 2026
Artist Biography
Jan Downes has a passion for porcelain. She holds a Masters of Fine Art from The University of Newcastle where she also taught art education and ceramics. She currently makes at Kil.n.it Experimental Ceramic Studios on Gadigal and Wangal lands, Glebe, Sydney, and occasionally teaches workshops.
Downes has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas. In recent years her ceramics has been selected as a finalist in the Clunes Ceramic Award, Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, North Queensland Ceramics Prize, Gosford Ceramic Prize and the Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize. In 2023 she had an exhibition at the Stella Downer Gallery in Waterloo. In the same year her ceramics was selected by The Australian Design Centre to be a part of their display at the Melbourne Design Fair.