Bilk Gallery's exhibition calendar usually includes a biannual exhibition of miniature glass works, but in honour of the Australian Trienniale Ceramics conference being held in Canberra this July, ceramics have been chosen instead.

The gallery is small, but lends itself to showing works in focus and the ceramics on display measure up well to this scrutiny.

The artists taking part – Brigitte Enders, Pippin Drysdale, Bev Hogg, Mitsuo Shoji and Hiroe Swen – are all well-known ceramicists. They were asked to make one work and then interpret it on a smaller scale, which was defined in the brief as a work that could be held in the palm of a hand.

What for me is an unusual and unexpected aspect of the exhibition is the link between the ceramic works on exhibition and the contemporary jewellery that is concurrently on display. I was struck by how Pippin Drysdale's command of colour relates to Helen Aitken-Kuhnen's enamel surfaces on silver and how Brigitte Enders' sophisticated and refined geometric forms relate to Johannes Kuhnen's last exhibition of jewellery, where he used stone in simple geometric forms.

Mitsuo Shoji's detailed inlaid work in clay also has a relationship to the way coloured metals or stones are inlaid in jewellery.

Hiroe Swen's use of sculptured relief work in ceramics in her grey-blue tonal glazes have resonances in Marian Hosking's sculptural relief work on oxidised silver. This affinity may be superficial, but it does underline the fact that there are many lines of dialogue between all areas of the visual arts, and the boundaries between them are constantly shifting.

Pippin Drysdale's finely made porcelain ceramics are well known for their intensity of colour and linear markings that interpret the artist's relationship with the Australian landscape. The particular vessels in this exhibition are outstanding examples of her latest work where form, glaze and markings have been refined to a point where everything comes together in an organic and satisfying creation.

These works positively glow with colour to the point where the coloured glazes seem to dissolve into particles that appear to float on the surface of the vessels.

It is a characteristic I have noticed in Helen Aitken-Kuhnen's enamel work, where the colours have such an intensity that the surfaces seem to dissolve.

One small bowl – Lime Moss – is in acid-green tones, but Drysdale has touched the rim with a soft berry red, an inspired note that makes the work sing. It is a good example of the artist's knowledge and mastery of colour and the reason why her works are so luminous.

Drysdale's large urn-shaped vessel in shimmering oranges, greens and yellow, and the series of small bowls of greens and orange-yellow tonings is based on the artist's memories of specific locations in Western Australia – Cat Paw Hills, the Canning Stock Route and the Tanami desert. The colours and lines that envelop these vessels are woven by Drysdale into song-lines that seem to distil the very essence of place.

In contrast, Hiroe Swen's grey-blue glazes wrap around her forms in a protective way. The large stoneware slab pot is from a series that Swen has started making in the past few years. The mood of this pot is sombre and stately, but the collection of small free-form pots is more lively. They reflect the sensitivity with which Swen applies her decoration to enhance the essence of each pot and give it individual character.

Mitsuo Shoji's work is jewel-like, even though the forms are geometric and sculptural. The large work Guardian/ Shuu go shi is a multifaceted and carved monolithic stoneware pillar with a presence that belies its size.

Its granite-like form is transfigured by myriad small pieces of inlaid coloured clays in reds and blues, so that the whole surface becomes a pattern highlighted with areas of silver leaf.

In the two smaller works based on sculptural spheres, the geometric forms are transformed by this technique of inlaid colour.

In all the works the delicate pinpoints of swirling bands of colour contrast in quite a marked way with the harshness and uncompromising material of the stoneware clay. This results in a tension between the decoration and the gritty materiality of the form that is, at best, provocative.

Brigitte Enders' work is elegant and sleek – a play of geometric forms in slab-built black spiel glazed clay.

Each sculptural piece is constructed by an artist who has an appreciation of the merits of form, balance and texture.

Some of the works have very fine decoration of geometric motifs that enliven their surfaces without detracting from the purity of their forms. In this appreciation of the finer points of design and the harmonies set up by balance, containment, and restraint, Enders' work has a dignity and monumentality that is not dependent on scale.

Bev Hogg's work, in contrast, is modelled so directly into the clay you can almost see the artist thinking. Her collection of mini rabbits inhabit one of the glass cases and are so full of exuberance and life that it would be no surprise to see their numbers increase overnight.

The small hedges are simply modelled, with one of their number portrayed in a cut-away view to reveal some interesting life concealed beneath the branches.

The large work of a clump of trees, by contrast, seems a bit more lifeless, although the branches and tree trunks were directly and forcefully made. The large round form representing foliage on the top of the tree trunk, however, seems rather unsympathetic by comparison and has not been modelled with the artist's usual panache.