Jan Howlin

After training in interior and graphic design, Jan Howlin moved into a career as a writer in advertising and corporate communication, and later in the editorial field, writing magazine articles on people, architcture and design. In 2003 she began working with clay and found in this most basic medium a fascination for three-dimensionality and unlimited potential for expression.
She completed a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in 2006 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2010, both in the ceramics studio at Sydney College of the Arts, and through these studies she has pursued a very personal direction. Initially, her interests were focused on formal values such as curvature, volume, asymmetry and fluidity, but over time the meaning that could be invested in the forms she created became paramount.
Jan’s upcoming exhibition at Salerno Gallery Show of Care, reconfigures the installation she created for her Masters Degree at SCA. The show brings together seven works, with over 40 individual ceramic pieces in total, in a mixed media presentation. While the ideas spring from her own childhood and family life, they draw on experiences that have been common to many of us, and thus offer the viewer substance for emotional connection and reflection.