Saturday, 4 August 2012
Kaz Pedersen migrated from London to Australia, moving from the frantic pace and European preoccupations to the sublime landscape of Australia. Her lifelong passion for the visual arts has resulted in a rich tapestry of exhibitions and public art projects.
Kaz works foremost as a community artist and has conceived and facilitated numerous innovative projects. By targeting socially and economically disadvantaged groups, as well as the greater community, she weaves strengthened community connections with relationships grounded in the physical environment and the importance of neighbours. This social fabric conquers many individual situations of isolation and assists in greater social health.
Kaz’s primary passion is for ceramics. In this medium she feels driven to create public artworks and often notes prospective sites years before initiation. The large-scale mosaic murals she designs are site specific and record her presence in the landscape. They are created to be viewed both close up, because of an exquisite attention to detail, and at a distance, with their visually striking designs. Her themes are reminiscent of a child’s sincere yearning to know another time and place where anything is possible and Utopia exists in the landscape of Australia.
Her approach is totally hands-on from start to finish, and although the program and designs are carefully choreographed in advance, the changes created through community involvement are seen as an essential part of the process; reflecting the history and character of place, contemporary cultural values and local identity.
As a graduating student from the University of South Australia, School of Architecture, Art and Design, glass forming has encouraged a new interest in the play of light in Kaz’s artwork. She has an emerging vision that wants to document the beauty of the land, its ancient dreaming and its multi cultural crucible.
