Sydney Teapot Show 2024: fantastic spouts and whimsical handles – in pictures

With more than three decades of history, this year’s exhibition at Gallery Lowe & Lee features over 140 wildly imaginative takes on the tea set – including a duck, a parrot and a pineapple

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Dancing Pineapple Teapot by Yang Qiu (highly commended, natural world category)

Artist and former pastry chef Yang Qiu’s charmingly surreal teapot is inspired by Asian grocery stores. ‘I really love to go shopping at Asian supermarkets and farmers markets where I can find interesting fruit,’ says Qiu. She uses this fresh produce to create moulds from which to cast her ceramics, later adding features such as fine legs.Growing up as an only child, Qiu found companionship by giving objects personalities. This continues today: ‘As I shape the clay, I imagine crafting a new companion for myself, envisioning them dancing and celebrating with me.’

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Maritime Fauna 1 by Marlize Myburgh (winner, natural world category)

On first glance, you might not recognise this as a teapot, but hidden in the body of this three-legged maritime creature is a tiny spout, handle and lid. Painstakingly constructed from many teardrop-shaped pieces, the teapot draws inspiration from nature and memory. Myburgh says that she is interested in ‘the technical challenges of the mediums of clay and glaze, exploring texture, pattern and form to provide exciting tactile and visual experiences’.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Wood-fired teapot by Steve Williams (winner, best pourer)

Subtly coloured and understated, it could be easy to overlook this teapot. But for Shane Shu, judge of the best pourer category and teahouse owner, it cannot be beaten for function. Its solid weight, good grip and functional spout position (higher than the pot’s body) all contribute to its success in creating a steady, consistent stream from pot to mug. The earthy colours, with a hint of blue milky chun glaze, were inspired by the landscape surrounding Williams’ studio where he works on a 100-year-old timber kick wheel and uses a 50-hour wood-firing process.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

While the Billy Boils by Simon Rosentool (highly commended, Australian poets category)

Simon Rosentool’s sculptural teapot honours Australian writer and bush poet Henry Lawson and his colonial-era anthology While the Billy Boils. ‘Before teapots came along,’ Rosentool says, ‘there were billy cans.’The work combines a functional hand-thrown teapot and a sculptural trivet. Its navy blue body is finished with wispy strokes of natural lustre which Rosentool created himself using local minerals, including red clay dug up from the roadside and other natural materials.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Exotic Species by Fleur Schell (winner, supreme teapot)

‘I use the stabilising, concrete nature of ceramics as a leaping off point for our imagination,’ says Fleur Schell, whose intricate tea set has won this year’s highest prize. Working with porcelain and using techniques including stamping textures and letters into the clay, Schell creates story-driven scenes. She hopes objects ‘can shift our perspective in such magical ways that it changes our daily habits’.

Photograph: Gallery Lowe & Lee

Termite – Tea by Ursula Burgoyne

Termites have a bad reputation, but for ceramicist Ursula Burgoyne they have proved an unusual collaborator. This large teapot’s form was created by pressing small balls of wet clay on to a hardwood fence that had been eaten by termites, embossing the pattern of the eroded timber on to the soft clay and creating textured disks. These disks were then hand-joined to form a mound-like pot which was finished with a tiny spout, handle and lid.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Guerrilla Koalas on a Borrowed Windup Teapot by Janice Raynor

Using humour and a sculptural approach, artist Janice Raynor’s teapot aims to bring attention to ‘the reality that koalas are still endangered due to habitat loss as eucalyptus corridors are increasingly cleared and lost in bushfires’. Her hand-built pot depicts a dozen ‘guerrilla koalas’ who ride an environmentally-friendly wind-up truck, patrolling and protecting their forests. ‘These “vigilantes” drink gum leaf tea from a red dotty teapot and sing rousing koala gum tree songs,’ Raynor says. More than telling stories about environmental protection, Raynor also practices it, using a solar-powered kiln to create her ceramics.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Mycellium Teaparty by Angie Russi

When Angie Russi was in her garden she noticed a large growth of fungi at the base of a tree. ‘The fruiting bodies were tiny and perfect, spreading into the folds of the tree bark, obviously fed by a massive system of mycelium reaching into the tree itself,’ she says. ‘It looked like a perfect mini tea party.’ In an ode to this ecosystem, Russi (who won last year’s highest prize, the supreme teapot), created a three-part pot with a natural twist. By embedding plant roots into porcelain, she transformed this normally smooth material into something beautifully textured.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Storyland Jamboree by Marina Pribaz

‘There are a number of artists who keep making each year,’ Jin Lee, Gallery Lowe and Lee’s co-director, says. Marina Pribaz is one of these long-term exhibitors. ‘We really like her very dreamy ceramics,’ Lee says. ‘She’s a good storyteller.’ This year’s teapot is no exception. According to Pribaz it ‘depicts an enchanted scene, where, at the stroke of midnight all the toys come to life for a dance and a shindigger-digger-do’. Although whimsical, the teapot is completely functional, constructed from a combination of hand-building and slip-casting methods in superior white porcelain.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Beach Shack by Diane Sergeant

Diane Sergeant describes this work as ‘a nostalgic little teapot in beach-shack-minty-green, with white trim and purple hydrangeas’, but throughout the process of making it, she didn’t know how the colours would turn out. Sergeant works with a technical process in which she adds stains and pigments to clay before shaping it. The clay, however, continues to look beige until it transforms in the second round of firing. ‘It’s always a shock,’ says Sergeant. ‘Sometimes the colours are jarringly wrong, or not right but a welcome surprise but, with luck, they’re happily, gloriously spot on.’

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Sally Snail and Her Tea House by Philippa Bird

There is a lovely, if somewhat surprising, synchronicity between snails and teapots. A snail moves at an average of 0.048km/h, while a teapot slows down the tea-making and drinking process, encouraging us to embrace a slower pace. Philippa Bird brings these two together in her hand-built sculptural teapot which is inspired by Scottish pottery and her father’s pottery practice.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

King Parrot and Crimson Rosalia by Mary-Lou Pittard

‘I have always enjoyed the challenge of making functional teapots,’ says Mary-Lou Pittard, who has been creating useful yet decorative ceramics since the 80s. She chooses to work with porcelain stoneware, both for practicality and because it provides a bright-white canvas on which her strongly coloured, hand-painted glazes can shine. Her work often depicts Australian flora and fauna.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

White Porcelain Teapot by Cathy Hayward

One of the more classical teapots in this exhibition, Cathy Hayward’s White Porcelain Teapot is, nevertheless, distinctive with an elegantly arched handle and its smoothly curved, stout body. Thrown by hand on a potter’s wheel, Hayward’s work can often be spotted beyond the confines of a gallery. She has made ceramics for popular restaurants including Movida and Park Street Pasta & Wine in Melbourne.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

The Inducktea by Amanda Harrison

A rubber duck is perhaps one of the most iconic childhood toys. As such, it is fitting that there is a giant rubber duck, recreated as a teapot, in the toy story category of the exhibition. The duck’s beak acts as the spout, its tail the handle, and its lid has the playful addition of a propeller that acts as a small grip. ‘I love creating quirky pieces that exude joy, hope and love,’ says Amanda Harrison, who brings her expertise as a graphic designer to her sculptural ceramic practice.

Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian