Ceramics

Whiteware with glazes 30"h x 14"w x 7"d

Large scale ceramic sculpture by Willett, whose trajectory of practice has developed in a sliding scale from functional objects towards expressive pottery in a career that has seen him study and collaborate with the likes of Ken Ferguson, Betty Woodman and Paul Soldner amongst others. This vessel explores an intersection of organic shape and texture, feeling for a sensation of fluid mass and density through relationships to the body and to the softer and more malleable machinations of clay. The proportions at which Willett works result from a period where the artist was offered studio space in a factory with access to industrial-level kilns and other equipment, the afforded ability to shift upwards in scale reinforcing an increasingly conceptual underpinning in his ceramic production that has held. Massive abstract earthenware sculpture, Sumus series, Colorado, 1990s On concrete base Signed 43" x 19" x 19" Note: Willett has studied and worked with Betty Woodman, Ken Ferguson, and Paul Soldner, among others.

'ISICHAPUITU (MELANCHOLY, FLAKY, NETA, Peruvian Kukuli Velarde makes work indebted to folk tradition and traditional ornamentation, exploring the new politics of identity, estrangements of context and acts of “forgetfulness” that occur as art is displaced from its origin. ‘Melancholy’ is cut from a series of works exploring memory, fear, desire and ideology through figurative icons that, in tandem, present a larger picture of the artists identity and belief in a shared system of traits. The sculpture is arguably the most elaborate and outwardly ornate of the series, the surface of the ceramic fired and highlighted to bring out a subtle pink hue that intensifies around points of depth or detail in a remarkably flesh-like manner. Cracked fins or extraneous, flaking details (most noticeably in the halo surrounding the head of the figure) are given a rich golden enamel coat, their reptilian nature reinforced by the brace of lizards crawling across and penetrating the surface of the form in an abject and violently sexual fusion. ENTANGLED, CULEBREANDO), 1998-2001 glazed earthenware each 24 in. (61 cm.) high (5) Sheboygan, Kohler Arts Center, Kukuli Velarde: Cantaros de Vida (The Isichapuitu Series), 2002.

A surreal combination of objects, ‘Memory Myth Motif Centaur with Objects’ might resemble a dreamlike collision of myth and fragmented cultural artefact. Nelsen began his ceramic practice in Japan, subsequently traveling Asia to extensively study eastern ceramic technique, and many of his sculptures exhibit a control over multiple frames of reference within those influences. This work’s tight tangle of forms teeters, as though caught in a moment before collapse. The expressive figure of the centaur and balletic rider merge into a larger sense of movement and chaotic balance. Nelsen was the first ceramicist to build an anagama kiln in the US, and the distinctive glaze on the piece is created from wood ash super-heated within its long sloped structure.