The concept of the vessel is the theme of this exhibition curated by Johannes Kuhnen and featuring David Walker, Mark Vaarwerk, Inari Kiuru, Vito Bila, Alison Jackson, Mark Edgoose and Robert Foster.

Vessels are among the oldest forms of domestic ware so it is no surprise to find that containers made of clay are among the most tangible signs of domesticity and commerce that survive from millennia ago. I have recently seen in the British Museum elegant and functional amphorae from the ancient world that have been retrieved by archaeologists from the shipwrecks around the coast of Sicily. Their poignant survival brings a new understanding of the function of these vessels in commerce and the vital role of the craftsman in creating these essential objects.

The artists in this exhibition are fully cognisant of these traditions but choose to reinterpret the concept of vessel in the light of their own creative practice.

In silversmithing, raising the walls of a vessel is a traditional skill. Vito Bila and Alison Jackson are the artists in this exhibition who are perhaps the closest to the traditional aspects of silversmithing. Bila is the technical officer at the Monash University jewellery workshop in Melbourne. He works using both traditional methods and digital technology. His metal vessels echo ancient functional forms of cup, bowl and urn and retain the evidence of their manufacturing process. Their forms are hammered out into shapes which are then joined by tiny rivets that make decorative patterns like punctuation marks along each edge. His deeply patinated Urn, 2016, made from beaten copper and bronze, provides a graceful profile of an ancient vase with a narrow neck and small curved handles. One handle is not completely joined suggesting a narrative that enfolds the object with a sense of a history. In both Tray #2 and Cup #3, this history is evident as it is incorporated into a new work. In Cup #3, an old silver golf mug is reconstructed as a riveted tankard and in Tray #2, a battered, engraved silver tray with the addition of small almost comical legs becomes a primitive form of table – quirky and inimitable.

Alison Jackson is based in Canberra. She recently had a very impressive exhibition of her fine silver tableware at Craft ACT and has become known for her beautifully constructed and finely chased small silver objects. In this exhibition, she turns from the soft lustre of silver to dark copper oxidised metal. Her cup-like forms (the tallest is about 130 millimetres in height) seem to have been hatched out of eggs like newborn ducklings. They struggle to stand and balance comically on tiny hollow rod-like legs or lie helplessly as if beached on their side. Hollow tubes bisect their interior space like plumbing. Removed from the functionality of Jackson's more usual creative practice, these tiny objects are playful and sculptural in form providing an insight into Jackson's considerable technical skill.

Mark Edgoose is a designer and academic at RMIT in Melbourne. His work considers how sculptural objects can inhabit the domestic space. Rail and Vessel is a soft grey metal construction that functions as an interconnecting and intersecting network of welded component parts made of niobium, steel and bronze. It aligns itself along the wall defining its space and asserting its presence as a sculptural object albeit with a second life as a functional shelf for holding objects.

David Walker is a Perth-based artist. His two trays, Longue Tray and Petite Tray, are composed of interconnecting slats and wires of silver, stainless steel and titanium. Designed on an open grid system, the works gently balance on a curved base while coloured and metal iridescent strips like darting fish are woven through their slats. Walker's other work, Vortex, uses this construction method to create an austere vessel of dark patinated copper that is enigmatic. Its form is open-ended yet paradoxically it evokes a strong feeling of entrapment.

Inari Kiuru is a Finnish artist and designer based in Melbourne. Her creative practice encompasses jewellery, sculptural objects and installations. Her small cast objects in concrete, mica and glass fragments are solid and cannot be considered as conventional vessels. In appearance they resemble natural stone yet they are in fact made from a manufactured material. In these works Kiuru is interested in light and their surfaces have been carefully crafted to retain and reflect the way light defines them as sculptural objects.

Mark Vaarwerk is a recycler of the detritus of our lives – in this case the polystyrene boxes that hold his mother's fruit and vegetable deliveries. They have been shrunk to many times smaller than their original size (the smallest is 120 by 95 by 50 millimetres) complete with all the dirt, markings and scribbles of the original boxes. One work is rather endearingly called Doris $82.50. The resulting miniature boxes have all the fascination of being miniaturised by a magical process but nevertheless they remain for me, at best, a fun curiosity.

The late Robert Foster's work is being shown in exhibitions around Canberra in tribute to this talented and skilled designer. The four vessels in this exhibition were made in 2009 yet their appeal remains fresh and enduring. The vessels are cylindrical in form and are fashioned from coloured anodised aluminium. Foster has hammered, pressed and hand-forged their walls to create restless, twisted and deeply undulating surfaces that hold the light. Standing slightly off centre, they have a dynamic sense of movement and life inspired by the energy found in the processes of nature – the life force, growth, wind and fire. These works, hard to consider without emotional engagement, really signify Foster's great talent as both an intuitive artist and accomplished maker and designer.