This captivating ceramic work, which won a Portage Merit Award when it was made in 2017, was purchased by Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna ō Waiwhetū in 2018. Cheryl Lucas, born in 1954, was raised on a Central Otago farm then studied in both Ōtepoti Dunedin and London. Since 1987 she has been based in Ōhinehou Lyttelton and exhibits regularly in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas.

Milkstock stands on a long, white plinth, about the size of a narrow kitchen table, with a clear, boxed Perspex cover on top. There is no obvious front or back; you can walk around the work and view it from any angle. On the plinth are 12 upright ceramic objects lit from above by two spotlights. They are clustered asymmetrically and oriented in different directions. Each resembles a familiar domestic vessel, such as a jug, mug or pitcher. Some are short and small enough to fit in the hand. Others are taller and stout, perhaps large enough to hold a couple of litres of milk. All are rounded and smooth. Each has a similarly formed handle, a rounded belly and a beaky spout-like protrusion from the rim.

Porcelain is a delicate but strong, white ceramic, most often used for tableware. Lucas has formed the vessels by hand on a potter’s wheel, then altered and added to their shapes. They appear as an odd but charming family of vessels, with similar features and identical colouring, but each unique in shape, size, personality and form. Lucas has used a uniform creamy crackle glaze with a slightly waxy sheen. She has then wiped red ink into the fine web of cracks when the clay was warm from the kiln, leaving the impression of stretched and engorged flesh.

The bubbling surfaces of Milkstock combine Lucas’s memories of her father borrowing jugs from the kitchen in which he mixed farm-related concoctions, with the swollen and chapped udders of over-milked cows.

Six of the vessels are empty, but the rest are filled with a solid but viscous-looking membrane at different stages of bursting over the tops. In some, this seems like a thick bubble of gum about to pop; in others, the vessels seem to be brimming with the imminent release of noxious gas. Some have residual matter around their rims and tell-tale pools around their bases. If the Perspex cover were lifted we might imagine being overwhelmed by the stench of sour milk, or hot, odious farmyard emissions. Although curiously beautiful, Milkstock also appears ominous and fermenting, growing and toxic, most certainly not to be consumed. The artist is commenting on the reality of intensive dairy farming and its impact on our countryside, waterways and native flora and fauna.

Lucas likes these words from curator Tessa McFee: “Assorted potion pots foam and pool, crust and curdle in veined swells and creamy glazes, a lavish yet uncomfortable excess which highlights the ill-effects of unsustainable dairying.”