With Bonnie & Linda Lynch.
The exhibition of four series is inspired by the once-in-a-millennium exhibition of paintings & drawings by Jheronimus Bosch that took place in Den Bosch & Madrid to mark the 500th anniversary of the painter’s death. Bosch’s paintings feature layers of pierced containers & shadows. The four recent series wrap around the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts gallery like the four parts of a triptych.
Nest Nest is a mud dauber nest made of a mixture of lake clay & industrial clay that is nestled inside a porcelain box that is contained in an Orton cone box. The tiny insect nests designed to wrap around a body also bring to mind earthen architecture. After withstanding high-temperature wood-firing, the nests are placed inside a container inside another, like a reliquary.
2017, wood-fired porcelain, wood-fired blended mud-dauber clay, cardboard box
braceros aligns three principal axes of inspiration: (1) the shadow, especially the abyss in the center of much of the art of Lee Bontecou; (2) the luster & tin-glazed Moorish “braseros” whose form is a large deep platter with a punt or lump in the center & a repetitive decoration in the spirit of horror vacui; & (3) materials & surfaces of terre vernissée, a kind of polychrome Mediterranean ceramic. “Brasero” signifies ember, since the first such pots were used for heating & cooking. However “bracero” signifies arm & the strength of labor. This series of ceramics, braceros, recalls the migration & repetitive labor of workers unattached to a site.
2014-5, earthenware with slip & glaze
Latest of several series searching to reconcile circle & square, Programming employs code & chaos in the reverse order of a Richter Abstract Painting. Ad Reinhardt, Francis Bacon, & Anish Kapoor inspired the choice of the reflective & transparent glaze as both a lens & an obstruction for viewing.
2015, marbled low-temperature ware with glaze
Owing to the multi-faceted importance of a handle, Silos are all handle – the form is a giant handle like a big scoop. The twenty-one ceramics in this series are the size of an embrace, to be covered or cradled by the body. Hung on hooks like cups in a cupboard, they appear available. Silos are inspired by shadows especially their occurrence in two novels of Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoires d’Hadrien & L’Oeuvre au Noir (Memoirs of Hadrian & The Abyss). The latter evokes the world of Jheronimus Bosch. Past troubles & polarized cultural milieux overcast Yourcenar’s otherwise indomitable protagonists.
2016, polished black stoneware, earthenware with slip & glaze, stoneware with glaze, steel hooks
April-July 2017, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX