Spotted | Stratified Clay, 3D-Printed Droplets + more!
Welcome back to Spotted, our eye-catching sightings from the world of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics nicely packaged here just for you! In this edition, we feature the rumply stacked clay of Alison Keogh, the lumpy 3d-printed imaginings of Colby Charpentier and more. Enjoy!
Featured image: Colby Charpentier, Blue and White Basket (detail), 2018, Ceramic, 8 inches
Colby Charpentier
Colby Charpentier's 3D-printed ceramic vessels can take up to 40 hours, that's because they are made one droplet at a time–– a time frame in which the artist explains tens of thousands of decisions are made and executed about how the vessel is built.
Each drop is a waypoint in the design of the object. As each drop forms a bead on the rim of the [in progress] vase, it slouches and falls in a direction, until the water is drawn out of the bead and it freezes, right in the middle of falling. There is no inside surface vs. outside surface, there is only the object and the space it contains. It's a really beautiful process. It's layered with the irony of an American studio artist hand-replicating a 3-d printing process; making work loosely indicative of blue and white Ming-ware. The preciousness and replication of porcelain has its own history. The action of making is how I ask and answer questions [about that]. The objects that I produce are a residue of this process.
Read more of Charpentier's works >>
Alison Keogh
We adore how Alison Keogh uses slurry, slip and clay to create her flaky, rumply sculptures and clay drawings. Her Cloaked Earth & Stratum 264 (2012) site-specific sculptures displayed at Santa Fe's The Center for Contemporary Arts spoke to the striated earth of New Mexico's landscape.
"This survey of work is a contemporary distillation of the New Mexico landscape into its essential elements, which aims to facilitate a reconnection to the land, thereby providing a new perspective, heightening an awareness of our connection to the earth. My work is a dialogue with the natural world, passing through my body, expressed through breath, mindful awareness, and repetitive gestures. I have always been an avid observer of the natural world, working from a place of focused attention and a visceral connection with clay."
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New York-based Argentinian artist Carlos Otero plays with deconstruction of form to create his primitive, yet plucky ceramic critters.
From Otero's biography:
In this collection of ceramic sculptures, Otero invites the viewer to approach familiar forms and shapes from a non-functional perspective. He repurposes orbs, spears and thorns–objects once employed by European monarchies and symbolic of medieval jewels–to emphasize each item's obsolete beauty. Otero encourages viewers to touch the collection's pieces to absorb the energy he felt throughout the creative process
Otero draws inspiration and influence from the Brutalist, Bauhaus, early 20th century modernists movements as well as Andean ceramics and primitive architecture.
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Filed Under: Spotted Tagged With: alison keogh, carlos otero, colby charpentier, contemporary ceramic art, contemporary ceramics, figurative art, sculpture, stoneware