Elizabeth Orleans: Giant Steps
7 March - 11 April 2015
Press Release
In her latest body of work Southern California artist, Elizabeth Orleans, expands upon her minimalist repertoire, bringing geometric precision and sensual whimsy together in an installation of unpredictable ceramic objects.
Monochromatic ladders glazed in crisp whites, fleshy peaches and glossy bronze, lean casually against the walls, teasing the viewer with their apparent functionality. Giant skeleton keys dangle from robust and seamless chains that appear deceitfully indestructible. And dozens of pyramidal shapes stretch across the walls in a rhythmic flourish that is simultaneously organic and abstract. Like the artist’s previous sculpture and architectural interventions, the work in Giant Steps seeks order in chaos and explores ideas of movement and the infinite possibility of time using highly concentrated shapes and a deliciously subdued palette. The significant departure surfaces in details rendered in bright colors and the addition of emblematic shapes of symbolic heft. This updated vocabulary brings the quietly abstract in concert with the archetypal in an unorthodox installation that plays melodiously across the gallery walls.
Elizabeth Orleans (b. Philadelphia, PA.) earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. She has also studied at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Clayworks in Santa Fe, Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, the Oregon School of Art and Craft in Portland and the Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy.
Her ceramic sculpture and site-specific installations have been featured in Ceramics Monthly magazine and have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santa Rosa, CA, the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Elizabeth Orleans maintains a studio in Venice Beach, CA.
Elizabeth Orleans
Port-clef, 2016
glazed ceramic
Box: 12 x 13.5 x 8 inches; Key: 21.5 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches