ENFLAMED: NEW CERAMICS AT CAVIN-MORRIS GALLERY
JUNE 18 - AUGUST 14, 2015
We are pleased to present ENFLAMED: New Ceramics at Cavin-Morris Gallery.
The challenge of this exhibition was to continue showing ceramic sculpture outside its utilitarian function, yet still to be completely in touch with its original material: Earth. We did not want the clay to serve merely as a platform for paint, or surface, or shape, but to continue speaking its own language. We set out to find great artists for whom form, surface, and technique, no matter how abstract or sculptural, never lost its ceramic integrity; from the eternal simplicity of the work of Akihiro Nikaido with his classic forms and sophisticated patina while still showing his fingerprints and direct connection to his physical process, to the streamlined almost aerodynamic precision of Simcha Even-Chen's mastery of the dramatic raku process. Also using raku firing to a completely different affect is Susan Halls, who manages to capture the quiet savageness of the animal forms she sculpts.
We chose sculptors whose work was as different from each other as possible. We were fascinated by Mitch Iburg’s explorations of local clays fired to their ashy extremes, by the carved subtleties of Tim Rowan’s pieces which are always monumental despite size, by the wise rhythmic landscapes built through rough beautiful repetition in the large sculptures by Sarah Purvey, by the foamy mineral madness of Eddie Curtis' manipulations of porcelains, by Rafa Perez's unending shape-shifting, in this case combining metal and earth, by the innate spiritual poetry of Melanie Ferguson’s meditations on landscape and the sea, by the stark biomorphic undulations of Rebecca Buck’s abstractions, by the powerful conceptual yet very personal pulse-quickening figural sculptures of Kukuli Velardi, by the way Lesley McInally’s pieces refer to walls and street art and abstract painting and without losing sight of their clay origins, by the almost Mesolithic structures of the work of Youngbin Lim introduced to us by Pragmata Gallery in Japan, and the increasing surface power and abstraction of newly fired work by Akira Satake.
This is a global exploration. We are privileged to work with these important artists and honored by their agreement to participate.