Maricelle Olivier
Maricelle Olivier is a South African-born ceramic artist exploring her personal history and creating her own space of belonging through clay. Her hand-built vessels, alive with vivid colour and repeated line, carry a cross-cultural language that draws on both her birthplace and the Australian landscape she now calls home.
Mamba, 2025, hand built BRS with slip and underglaze, 290 h x 340mm d
Born in Johannesburg, Maricelle moved to Australia in 2007. She was first drawn to ceramics by her high school art teacher, and while she always imagined becoming a high school teacher herself, she deferred her degree twice to study a Bachelor and then a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics at the National Art School in Sydney, graduating in 2018. Both times, it was the encouragement of a mentor that kept her on that path.
“I don’t think there was one specific moment when I realised I would dedicate my life to craft and art, but rather a series of small moments that gradually led me here.”
After art school, Maricelle spent 2019 to 2021 as Ceramics Studio Manager at Ernabella Arts in the APY Lands of remote South Australia. Away from the city, with time to prepare for her first solo exhibition, she realised she wanted to make a living from ceramics. Even so, she kept resisting. Back in the city and newly represented by Sabbia Gallery, she worked in medical records at a hospital by day and in the studio by night, until her manager offered to extend her contract.
“I said no; I was going to pursue my career as an artist. It was the first time I had said those words out loud to anyone other than my husband. I felt free, certain, and like I wasn’t fighting what I had felt I was meant to do all along.”
Déjà vu, 2025, handbuilt BRS with slip and underglaze, 305 h x 530d mm
Maricelle’s vessels are hand built and finished with slip, underglaze and lustre, their surfaces covered in patterns drawn line by line. The repetition is central to her practice: each mark becomes a way of holding memory, unpacking cultural identity and maintaining a living connection to her heritage. For Maricelle, a line is the simplest of elements, yet one that holds “an abundance of meaning and ideas.”
Represented by Sabbia Gallery in Sydney, she has presented solo exhibitions including Technicolour Desert (2021), Chiaroscuro (2022) and a thousand lines, a thousand times (2025). She has exhibited at Sydney Contemporary and in the major exhibition Clay Dynasty at the Powerhouse Museum, and was a 2024 finalist in the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, the Fleurieu Biennale Art Prize and the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award. Her work is held in the National Art School and City of Sydney collections.
Now based in Canberra, Maricelle teaches ceramics and has guest curated at the Canberra Potters Society, and she returns regularly to Ernabella as a visiting artist. Sharing her love of the medium has become an important part of her practice.
“I’ve come to realise that dedicating my life to craft isn’t something I decided just once. It’s a commitment I continue to choose, through making, teaching, and sharing my work with others.”
King Cobra, 2025, handbuilt BRT with slip, underglaze and lustre, 390 h x 420mm d
Maricelle is excited by the possibilities for craft in Australia, but clear-eyed about its challenges. In an increasingly digital world shaped by AI, she sees a renewed appreciation for the handmade, because behind every work there is a person, a story and a personal history.
“Craft also gives us the opportunity to slow down and connect with something in a more meaningful way and challenge our way of thinking.”
At the same time, she is concerned by the closure of arts institutions, ongoing shortfalls in arts funding and the rising cost of living, all of which make sustaining a practice over time harder. “How do we continue to support artists and the arts more broadly if we can’t sustain the spaces and opportunities that are needed now more than ever?”
“Ultimately, I hope craft continues to grow in appreciation, but that we continue to find ways to support the people behind it.”