SOFT MATTER | ISABELLE MACKAY-SIM

Exhibition Statement
Soft Matter presents ceramic artworks that challenge social and material hierarchies, crossing boundaries between craft, sculpture and still life. Borrowed from physics, the term soft matter describes materials that exist between liquid and solid, with clay embodying this state of transformation. 

For Mackay-Sim, the term also carries a metaphorical resonance. It speaks to the softness of the human body and the way "soft" has long been used to diminish traditional craft practices through associations with gender, appearance and class. Rather than accepting these hierarchies, Soft Matter embraces softness as a site of strength, complexity and possibility, a quiet but powerful act of dissent against the conventions that have long shaped how craft is valued and understood. 

Situated between vessels, dioramas and still life, these abstract ceramic sculptures invite viewers into material worlds where softness is celebrated and conventional distinctions between art forms begin to dissolve.

Artist Biography
Isabelle Mackay-Sim is an artist based in Canberra on Ngunnawal Country. Working primarily in ceramics, her practice explores the abstraction of the figure to examine perception, gender and the ways identities are constructed. Driven by a fascination with form and texture, she creates sculptural objects that oscillate between attraction and repulsion, inviting viewers to reconsider their relationship with the body and materiality.