Raw Material
16 December - 03 February 2024
On view at Craig Krull Gallery Bergamot Station Art Center 2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg. B3 Santa Monica, CA 90404
Press Release
“Handmade objects feel like energy points of light that dot our material world. When we make objects, we communicate with this invisible realm, we dialogue with the unsaid.”
-Vince Montague, ceramist and author of Cracked Pot.
Raw Material is a group exhibition of twenty-five esteemed local and international ceramic artists, co-curated by Hannah Sloan and Craig Krull Gallery. The title references the natural textures and tones of clay, an unglazed organic beauty, or the elemental matter that some of these artists shape into emotional narratives and raw self-reflections. Like dance, ceramics is an extraordinarily direct medium, containing a fluid evolving form in the cupping of one’s hands, or the clear evidence of fingerprints and actions of the body on malleable earth.
The installation will include large scale sculpture by Ray Barsante, coil built vessels by Brittany Mojo, Edo Antal and Pascale Vaquette, miniature vessels in classical shapes by Ariane Shahbazi, as well as personal narrative work by Elizabeth Scott, Jorge A. Jiménez Jr. and Lucas Pincer-Flynn. Claudia V. Solórzano references architectural elements of East LA, while Dora De Larios and Victor Reyes draw from ancient and contemporary Mexican culture, and Pearl Jusem reimagines ancient animal-shaped askos. Louise Martens’ playful figures in yoga poses recall Mayan and Aztec Chac Mool, while Pez Cocinado advocates for plastic free oceans in her colorfully inventive fish dishes and pots.
The work of Kevin Kowalski, Chris Miller and Bianca Juarez take the alchemical, experimental aspects of glazing and firing to new levels of discovery. Stan Edmondson and Ned Roche deconstruct and reconstruct bull skulls and giraffes with tiny heads. Amy Kivnick, Gina Zycher, Kristi Sherman and Stacy Fong, all members of the ceramic workshop, Still Life Studio, add modernist and historical touches to the ever evolving and deep history of vessel making. Also, on view for the first time in the US, are works by Costa Rican artist Daniela Martén Rothe, whose acrylic paintings of earth toned, egg-shaped abstractions are made with pumice stone, charcoal, sand and clay native to her country. Her gestural ovoids recall the stains and swirls of wet clay that result from the focused centering of material on the spinning potter’s wheel.
Participating Artists:
Amy Kivnick, Ariane Shahbazi, Bianca Juarez, Brittany Mojo, Chris Miller, Claudia V. Solórzano, Daniela Martén Rothe, Dora De Larios, Edo Antal, Elizabeth Scott, Gina Zycher, Jorge A. Jiménez Jr., Kevin Kowalski, Kristi Sherman, Lucas Pincer-Flynn, Ned Roche, Pascale Vaquette, Pearl Jusem, Pez Cocinado, Ray Barsante, Stacy Fong, Stan Edmondson, Studio Loux, Victor Reyes, Vince Montague.
