Anatomy of a Vessel

as part of RADIANT PAVILION 2026 :

Naarm / Melbourne Contemporary Jewellery and Object Biennial

Artists: Kelly McDonald (NZ)

Lindy McSwan (Australia)

Radiant Pavilion returns for its sixth edition, presenting Australian and international contemporary jewellery and object practice across Naarm/Melbourne. With more than 300 artists participating in 59 events, this year’s program continues to reflect the breadth of approaches, materials, and ideas within the field.

‘Anatomy of a Vessel’ is a collaborative project by Kelly McDonald and Lindy McSwan. With a shared affinity for steel and found industrial and domestic objects, they have used these materials to create two distinct yet interconnected bodies of work.

The project explores material transformation, the “social life” of objects, and the relationship between solid and hollow forms. McDonald begins with domestic fragments, testing the limits of what a vessel can be. McSwan generates hollow structures that evolve around found, rusted elements. Together, their works examine how discarded materials can be reimagined, creating a dialogue between function, form, and the histories embedded within industrial and domestic remnants.

Kelly McDonald is an artist based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand. Her work is a playful investigation into materials and their previous lives. McDonald’s childhood growing up near the largest brown coal deposit in the southern hemisphere informs her visual language, with a masculine and utilitarian aesthetic to her work. Using discarded domestic and industrial artefacts, she deconstructs, reconstructs, and arranges these potent, much-handled objects in surprising new relationships with each other and the body. Creating a subversive material language, her re-contextualisations invite touch while transgressing the boundaries of wearability. @kellymcdonaldnz‍ ‍

Lindy McSwan was born, lives and works in Naarm / Melbourne. After completing an MFA by research in 2023, her work continues to investigate the materiality and life cycle of steel and its social, industrial, and gendered histories within Australian steelmaking sites. The vessel form is typically the object of her practice incorporating varied materials including steel, vitreous enamel, found rusted objects, fabric, cardboard and handmade pigments. Lindy was a finalist in the Robert Foster Metal Prize in 2022 and 2024. Her solo exhibition, The Steelworks: Women’s Work, was held in Craft Victoria’s Vitrine Gallery in 2025. @lindymcswan

Presented by Studio Ingot at Vertical View Gallery, as part of Radiant Pavilion