Richard Monger
Fine arts/honors
MADA Monash University
Specialisms: Ceramics / Fine Art / Sculpture
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Richard Monger
First Name: Richard
Last Name: Monger
Specialisms: Ceramics / Fine Art / Sculpture
Sectors:
My Location: Melbourne, Australia
University / College: MADA Monash University
Course / Program Title: Fine arts/honors
About
I’m Richard Monger, a sculptor working with ceramic, glass and emerging bio-luminescent materials. My practice is grounded in material curiosity and explores the intersection of science, spirit and sensory experience. I aim to create work that acts as a vessel for memory, presence and emotional resonance where touch, light and fragility become sculptural language.Before returning to art, I spent 15 years as a chef specializing in French, Japanese and Southeast Asian cuisines. At age 30, epilepsy forced me to leave the kitchen. That rupture led me back to a childhood love of making. I began with painting and textiles, but it was clay that transformed my practice. Its capacity to absorb energy and memory mirrored the healing I sought through my hands.In 2016, I completed a Diploma of Ceramics at Holmesglen TAFE. I went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Art (2023) and Honors (2024) at Monash University. My undergraduate project, FUSION, explored the coexistence of porcelain and glass, drawing from both ancient traditions and material science. My Honours work, Pareidolia, introduced bioluminescence to the practice, shifting focus toward ecological and spiritual presence within form.My process now involves layering porcelain and fused glass with handmade Japanese Washi paper to investigate memory, transparency and decay. This work led to a 2025 scholarship to Japan, where the curator of the Toyama Glass Museum, Ruriko Tsuchida, introduced me to Professor Makiko Nakagami of the Toyama Glass Studio. Following this meeting, I was invited to return as a guest resident artist to further develop my explorations into marine bioluminescence and glaze chemistry.Recent achievements include the 2024 Tess Hill and Bill Hawtin Scholarship, 2025 the Cathedral Cabinet commission with Contemporary Craft Victoria, the 2023 Wardle Art and Design Award and the 2022 Anton Herman Social Justice Award.
Pareidolia explores the fusion of ceramics, glass, and bio-luminescent material to expand the language of sculpture. Rooted in curiosity, the work investigates the emotional, tactile, and metaphysical dimensions of matter—where fragility and imperfection become central to form. Drawing on traditional porcelain's poetic symbolism and Sun Tzu’s notion that "The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful," Pareidolia challenges taboos around fusing silica-based materials. Employing a trial-and-error process, it documents technical variables such as glaze chemistry, atmospheric firing, and annealing—to reveal the unpredictability of ceramic-glass interaction. Inspired by ecological systems like bio-luminescent fungi and Washi paper layering, Pareidolia merges ancient practices with emerging materials, inviting a return to childlike experimentation. It is both a scientific and spiritual inquiry, an invitation to see beyond the visible, where light, memory, and presence become embedded within the sculptural surface.
PAREIDOLIA emerges through a process of layering, melting, and refiring porcelain with hand-milled stained glass, using pâte de verre and bio-luminescent materials to push the limits of compatibility. I work intuitively, casting, breaking, and reassembling forms to explore how transformation manifests in both body and spirit. These delicate structures echo ocean fragments, relics, or imagined organisms, inviting pareidolic readings. My practice embraces tension: between fragility and resilience, chaos and care. Through this process-led approach, I aim to evoke slowness, sensory attunement, and a quiet invitation to notice what glows; imperfectly, through fracture, failure, and luminous reformation. Visual Diary https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GuNTEg-C0Jd6G8iNDZJa8CTX-QGBceay/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=112218916315690671596&rtpof=true&sd=true Review, 'Book of Fusion'. https://mass.memoreview.net/2022/bachelor-of-fine-art-mada-by-mia-palmer-verevis?fbclid=PAQ0xDSwMSKHkBpg4tC0POs8QF5gehlFwGNuwKTmB2FkndmNCfCo46uXzVmcd5-zbueWPPUQ
Competitions
