Pamela Irving

Pamela Irving (born 1960) is an Australian visual artist specialising in bronze, ceramic and mosaic sculptures as well as printmaking and copper etchings.

In addition to her extensive art work, Irving has lectured in art and ceramics at Monash University, the Melbourne College of Advanced Education, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and the Chisholm Institute of Technology.

She also worked as an art critic for the Geelong Advertiser and was a councillor on the Craft Council of Victoria.

Born in Victoria, Australia, Irving was formally educated at the Melbourne State College (1979–1982) where she undertook a Bachelor of Education (Art/Craft) and she completed a Master of Arts degree by research at the Melbourne College of Advanced Education.

Supervised by Professor Noel John Flood, (ceramicist and the Head of Ceramics Department), Irving was one of the first two candidates to be approved to undertake the Master of Arts Degree in Visual Arts in what was, at that time, the Melbourne CAE.

Irving's thesis for her master's degree examined 'the reasons and meaning behind the presence and mythology imagery in the works of Arthur Boyd, John Perceval and Mirka Mora (those artists being nominated because of the relevance to my own work)'.

Pascoe observes that Irving's work is derived from 'a mixture of personal experience, myth and virulent imagination'.

Hammond has described Irving's early ceramic work as 'humorous, figurative and cheerfully contemptuous of pottery traditions.

Irving's early art was influenced by artists including Arthur Boyd, John Brack, Noel Connihan, Mirka Mora, Sidney Nolan and John Perceval.

In recent years, Irving has been influenced ″by the honest and direct expressiveness of ‘outsider art’ (the art of self-taught or 'naive artists') and the craft of 'memoryware'″ Significantly, this interest grew following Irving's visit to Nek Chand's Rock Garden in Chandigarh, India.

Active in mosaic art in Australia, Irving served as a councilor on the Craft Council of Victoria during the 1980s and became vice-president of the Mosaic Association of Australia and New Zealand between 2007 - 2017.

Between 1981 and 2018, Irving took part in 27 solo exhibitions, 16 joint exhibitions and more than 100 group exhibitions.

Irving's work is held in the following collections:

Irving's most famous work is the bronze sculpture of Larry La Trobe, commissioned in 1992 as a part of the Swanston Street redevelopment in Melbourne, and stolen by a thief or thieves unknown during 1995.

The resulting media attention rallied significant public support for the recovery of the sculpture.

Although never recovered, the statue was recast by the foundry owner, Peter Kolliner, with some minor changes by Irving and was replaced in September 1996.

The Larry sculpture is located at the corner of Swanston Street and Collins Street, Melbourne.

Another notable commission is a large mosaic mural covering the Luna Palace building inside Melbourne's Luna Park.

This large scale public artwork was commissioned for the centenary of Luna Park and took four years to complete.