Amy Kennedy is a mid-career Ceramic Artist & Artist Mentor based in Melbourne. Her work is guided by a deep interest in the aesthetics of material, process and transformation. Using unique ceramic-glass materials, she has researched and developed, Amy creates sculptural works exploring concepts of energy and force, with allusion to earth’s forms and landscapes.

Amy graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Honours from RMIT University in 2006, having previously completed a Diploma of Ceramics at Box Hill Institute of TAFE. Her career highlights include being awarded residencies at The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park Japan, Baer Art Center Iceland, Anderson Ranch Arts Centre, Colorado USA, and the European Ceramic Work Centre in The Netherlands.

In 2015 she was awarded first prize in the Toorak Village Sculpture Exhibition and in 2013 a New Work Grant by the Australia Council for the Arts. This grant was instrumental in setting her on the path to developing new ceramic-glass materials and innovative construction and firing methods.

Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions nationally, including Things of Clay, Stone and Wood, Whitehorse ArtSpace Melbourne (2019), Return to Beauty, Edwina Corlette Gallery Brisbane (2016), Quiet Conversations, Skepsi Gallery (2014) and An Important Exhibition of Australian Ceramics: A Tribute to Janet Mansfield at Mossgreen Gallery, Melbourne (2014). Her work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia, The Ian Potter Museum and Bendigo Art Gallery.

Amy returned to study and completed her Masters of Arts Management at RMIT University in 2020, her research focusing on the challenge many visual artists encounter when writing about their art.

In 2018 Amy launched her first program to support visual artists, The International Artist Program. This is designed to help artists land the artist residency of their dreams. She has helped artists secure residencies in Australia, Asia and Europe.

She now offers the EVOLVE Program twice yearly, a 6-month online mentoring program to help artists and craftspeople expand their potential inside and outside the studio, and The Fresh Eyes Writing Program.

Amy is represented by Skepsi Gallery, Melbourne.

An inquisitive, inventive approach and a unique ability to explore outside the usual expectations of clay as a material are characteristic of the work of Amy Kennedy. These forms are ingenious and original, extremely risky and very exciting. A meticulous scientific approach has led to the development of unique materials facilitating experiments with the lifting of traditional thin covering glaze layers - transforming them from an external surface into the building material itself. Extensive testing and development has produced bodies strong enough to form fine, paper-thin filaments of ceramic material to be slowly and laboriously built up into compacted, intimate and tightly layered objects. References to other media abound in this work with intriguing hints to paper, silken fabric, delicate undercarriages of mushrooms and even delicious mille-feuille pastries. Survival of these pieces in the kiln is clearly miraculous, a feat of courage, determination and great persistence. There is a quiet energy and flowing movement in this work, hints of a gentle wind over grassland, a swirling whirlpool, the passing of seasons, human growth and change.
Written by Prue Venables, Living Treasure: Master of Australian Craft
Written in 2014 to accompany the exhibition Important Exhibition of Australia Ceramics, a tribute to Janet Mansfield OAM (1934-2013), Mossgreen Gallery, Melbourne