Tender Shadows
Roshni Senapati & Liz Sofield
Joint Exhibition
6 – 27 September 2025
Curator: Anna Hanks
MAKERS GALLERY
53 Jackson St
Clayfield QLD 4011
0417 886 185
Curators Statement

‘Tender shadows’ brings together the work of Liz Sofi eld and Roshni Senepati, two artists whose practices share a significant sensitivity to material, gesture and memory. In different ways, both artists shape their chosen mediums with an attentiveness that allows traces of touch, emotion and time to remain present on the surface.
This exhibition, invites viewers into the delicate meeting of memory, material and time. Through porcelain and textiles, Liz and Roshni craft vessels that carry stories, gestures and carefully held moments.
The title ‘Tender Shadows’, reflects the approach of the exhibition. Shadows here aren’t just absences or obscured spaces. They are places of quiet depth, where form, gesture and feeling gather. The tenderness comes through in how Liz and Roshni engage with their materials, each work shaped with care and thoughtfulness.
Liz’s crochet porcelain pieces are acts of celebration and remembrance. Inspired by the rituals of her mother and grandmother, they honour the skills and passions passed down across generations. Her work is not a meditation on loss, but a refl ection on connection, the way creation threads together past, present and future.
Roshni’s work, drawn from worn saris and family textiles, becomes tangible traces of memory. Each thread holds a story, embedding the histories of people and place within the material itself. Her vessels create spaces that hold ancestral memory and connection.
These works converge in a space of quiet refl ection, where memory is both fragile and enduring. The exhibition explores how materials can preserve the ‘Tender Shadows’ of our past and how acts of making become vessels for connection, identity and continuity.
More About The Artists
Tender Shadows
Roshni Senapati
This body of work honors the makers in my family, particularly my mother and draws inspiration from the long tradition of handloom weaving and textiles of India.
I wanted to make a body of work that linked my love of hand woven textiles with my clay practice. Rather than focus on colour, texture or pattern of the textiles, I looked instead to their weaving. This led me to two important elements central to the hand loom – spindles and hand held shuttles, and these gave me a point of reference for the two distinctly different forms I have made for the exhibition.
Dhooree (meaning spindle in Hindi) is the name I have given to the tall forms. Hand built using thin slabs of porcelain clay, the vessels are ‘dyed’ by repeated dipping in a vat to build up layers of colour.
This is a collection of small vessels made in the palm of my hand. Referenced on weaving shuttles, these vessels are made from left over scraps of rolled clay. Cupping a small slab of clay in the palm of my hand, the vessels are formed by the gentle pressure of my thumb and fingers. These gestural bowls are not intended to be any particular form, although many look like shells, seed pods or leaves. I am really interested in the response of the clay to the way in which it is held.
All vessels have looped and knotted threads. These silk threads are drawn from old saris, sewing fabric remnants and embroidery threads collected by my mother over a life time of hand making. They offer a direct touchpoint between her work and mine and continues the cycle of making, giving new life to something used and old.
Liz Sofield
“Stitching in patterns of light
memories in the shadows.
Hoping they will find their
way back to you.
Memories are what make us unique. “
Immersed in a creative textile environment from day one, my Nana was a tailoress and she taught my Mother, who taught my sisters and me to sew, knit and crochet. Formal studies in Textile Design and Interior Design in Wellington and Auckland were therefore a very natural step.
During a short spell in a remote, mining town in Western Australia, I found that quality art supplies were not readily available, so I turned to the textile making skills of my childhood to create artworks using paper and thread.
It was when my son Liam was obsessed with making paper planes, I would sit for hours folding with him and my daughter Rosabella. By this playing I became fascinated with origami and began applying my origami skills to my hand stitching and then later to my ceramics, folding and imprinting clay producing fine white porcelain dishes that mirrored my delicate stitches.
Never imagining that I would work in clay, as it is not been a medium that I was familiar with. Three years ago, a chance conversation with a friend, resulted in us going to hand building and wheel throwing classes at our local pottery society. Not having any expectations of outcome; it was freeing to play and explore a new medium. I wanted to continue and incorporate this into my arts practice.
Ongoing exploration of marrying textile and clay techniques, I discovered dipping fibre/fabric into slip. My crochet porcelain vessels treasure my memories of childhood and give thanks to my Mum, who’s memory is affected by the onset of dementia. I don’t want to dwell on the sadness of this, but to celebrate the skills and the passion for creating that my Mum has passed down to me.
