'Closing the Gap - making ends meet' by Graham Hay. 1996. Unfired stoneware paperclay. 84 x 84 x 18cm (33 x 33 x7in).

It is hard to image how Graham Hay could have made his incredible pieces without paperclay, and the qualities of the material have influenced both his thinking and the way he works. In the dry heat of western Australia clay dries quickly, and components for his sculptures are allowed to dry out completely before they are joined with paperclay slip to make his complex constructions. He calls this wet-and-dry technique 'dip'n stick'. If changes need to be made it is easy to soak an area and break or cut it off; and just as easily new areas can be added dry to dry and held together with slip; or plastic paperclay can be added to dry. This increased spontaneity means that unfired work can be pulled apart and rejoined and repeatedly reassembled until a satisfactory result is achieved. For Graham, working in this way has meant an even greater degree of irreverence to the normal conventions of working with clay.

It is hard to describe the work that he makes. It is totally original, fitting into no known category and not seeming to come from any recognizable ceramic tradition, but rather to derive from the way in which animal structures are built. It includes elements which appear to be taken from partly eroded anthills, or coral reefs, or paper wasp's nets chewed from old wood, which look delicate but are actually very strong. To a northern Scot such as I am, his work seems to epitomize the land from which it comes: an alien continent in a different hemisphere, full of heat and light, space and sudden flashes of intense colour.

But Graham describes his work as being concerned with people and the organization and institutions they create or are drawn into, the mass of tiny units that build up to make the whole great edifice. The titles of the works reflect this: BloomingBureaucracy, or City Hall for instance. While architectural elements are used as metaphors, the building is never as rigid as it appears, and buildings are not the organizations, people are, and they regularly change'. Our social status is frequently defined by our job or the position we hold within a group, and there are tensions both within and outside the circle. The paperless office is a myth, and the large amounts of paper generated even in the computer age are another concern, making paperclay a particularly suitable medium'‚ because paper is a constant companion in the creation and maintenance of organizations and institutions'. Some recent work has been made entirely from paper.

Before using paperclay Graham has difficulties in making tall or top-heavy work, and found the process of propping large pieces and controlling drying to avoid cracking too tedious, putting a restriction on the on the freedom of expression that he wanted to convey. Now, because of paperclay's rapid drying, he finds it possible to build in all directions, so that within a dry rod framework building can be up, down or sideways, inwards or outwards in planes, rods or spheres. This type of structure breaks away from the conventional vessels or wall, so that the gaps and spaces giving glimpes to the interior or beyond are as important as the solid elements. Graham describes this as being akin to a three-dimensional drawing in space, with the lines having real mass rather than being merely an illusion.

Always an innovator, he has developed unorthodox methods of creating the components that he wants for his pieces. Paperclay sheets are thinned by throwing them repeatedly on the ground, always the same way up; this also gives a roughened, earthy texture to one side of the clay. Texture and surface detail are important in his work, and the hardness of dry paperclay means that it is not blurred in subsequent handling and assembling. The sheets can then be torn up into smaller pieces for stacking or assembling.

Rods are made by dipping wool or cotton (or even spaghetti!) into paperclay slip and allowing them to dry till stiff. Like making a candle from molten wax, the cord must be dipped several times to achieve sufficient thickness; it must also be dried out thoroughly between each dip, or the previous layer will not be sufficiently absorbent to take up more slip. This is a much easier way to achieve long, straight rods than trying to roll coils evenly, and because the fibres in the paperclay pull and catch, using an extruder is not satisfactory either.

Curved shapes can be made by draping plastic sheets or rods over a former, and tapered rods can be made from plastic clay curved or bent into spirals when soft, then assembled when stiff enough. Sometimes pasta is mixed into the slip, and after firing the surface can be opened up, giving a broken 'anthill' effect. All the components are made individually and dried before being joined and fired. This gives great flexibility, and it also means that any extra pieces can be stored until needed and used even months later in other work.

In a wonderful piece of lateral thinking, Graham suggests that the incredible strength of unfired paperclay could revolutionize the way that artists exhibit and communicate. Instead of having to pay the considerable expenses of sending delicate fired objects from one country to another, why not send unfired components to local artists who could assemble and fire them, even adding embellishments of their own as they thought fit? That would truly introduce a real element of change.