About

Spanning ceramics, sculpture and installation Lea Durie is an artist drawn to the mud of place and the questions of belonging that arise in landscapes of urban expansion. Durie works with place through walking, material collection and making with found clay and rock, spending time with places through embodied practice. Her work moves between intimate objects and large-scale installations that challenge the nature/culture divide, exploring human and non-human relations through works that examine what emerges when we consider ourselves and our environment as fundamentally interwoven. Her practice reflects a queer woman's outsider perspective on place and connection.

Durie completed her Master of Contemporary Art Practices, with commendation, at the Australian National University in 2024. Her emerging practice sits within contemporary art movements responding to place and climate at a critical moment when ecological crisis demands new ways of understanding our position within local ecologies. These acts of embodied practice and research create space for more reciprocal relationships with the places we inhabit, informed by her interdisciplinary background in landscape architecture and urban planning.

In 2023 Durie's work was recognized by both Belconnen Arts Centre and Craft + Design Canberra with two important Emerging Artist Awards. She was a further award winner in the North Queensland Ceramic Awards in 2024, and her work was highly commended in the Klytie Pate Ceramic Award in Victoria 2023. Her solo exhibition, Tracks and Threads, marked a turning point in Durie’s practice, showcasing an extensive and innovative body of work at Belconnen Arts Centre 2024. In 2024 she curated the Vessels from the Villages exhibition for the Watson Arts Centre. Durie has also exhibited at Gallery LNL, Newtown, Corner Store Gallery in Orange, Canberra Museum and Gallery.

Durie completed artist residencies at the Canberra Potters Society in 2025 and BigCi in 2024.

Durie creates work from her studio at Strathnairn Arts Centre on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, overlooking the Murrumbidgee River. Here she also produces reduction-fired everyday ware inspired by the mountain landscapes of NSW, under the brand Mud Dept, sold through galleries, selected stores and online.