Perspective, 2017

ceramic, underglaze, flocking

and vintage millenry elements

14 x 17 x 12”

Courtesy of the artist

Inspired by the sensuality of the natural world, I appropriate botanical forms with their openly displayed reproductive elements as a metaphor for human sexuality. By creating abstracted flower blooms with layers of detail, my intentions are to inspire the viewer to explore the work in the same way one explores nature. Eliminating the presence of stems, leaves, and roots removes the physical context of the plants allowing the viewer to focus on the form specifically in terms of its sexuality. The exaggerated forms of the stamens and pistils create a visual language making direct correlations between the botanical forms and characteristics of the human body. These biomorphic forms are designed to lead the viewer to a subconscious association between nature and the human instinct of attraction. Through my work I’m questioning ideas of beauty, eroticism, adaptation, acceptance, attraction, and desire.

Alternate View

Utilizing contemporary imagery mined from commercial ceramic molds used most commonly in the decorative arts, as well as my own source imagery, I contextualize this imagery to suggest a vocabulary that is both familiar and mysterious. Melding these images into one another suggests a dreamlike state where in images, like ideas, experiences and emotions come in and out of focus. More specifically, in this piece, I incorporate figurative imagery on weapons to reflect on violence and those who are impacted by it.

Alternate View

Without apology, this work is highly personal. A visual abstract of my emotional experience as a composer/songwriter, from the completion of a song, to its public release, and the feeling of finality that occurs. I work on a visceral level –only with my hands. This piece represents surprise endings; thus my title meaning, “…a closing adjunct of any movement, or piece, specially intended to enforce a feeling of completeness and finality”, which brings the piece to an end. An optional ending most often a surprise. The lower half additionally represents the mere reflection of the music heard by an audience after  writing, producing and releasing a song.  My experience is similar with visual art.

This work began with an archival print made from an 11’x16” photo of a mostly bluish-gray mixed media-painting incorporating collage, pigment transfers of my piano keys and torn strips of my Grammy nominated music. Next came a photo, followed with an archival print, the application of more media, more photography, digital manipulation and printing. The process continued 21 times, in varying sizes –resulting in a suite of artworks, all distinctly different– each with a surprise ending.

Coda 021, 2018

mixed media: Chinese ink,

archival printer’s ink, Chinese paint

38 x 29“

Courtesy of the artist

This piece explores how time is not linear. Text is translated into binary code and stenciled onto paper using a variety of ink pens. Next, water is dropped like rain on the piece to disperse the ink. Finally, layers of ink were added to complete the piece. The title refers to the text coded into each piece.

Time Is Asymmetrical 2, 2017

pen and ink on paper

28 x 19.5“

Courtesy of the artist

Ice Floe, 2019

ceramic, MDF, casein and

spray paint, hardware

16 x 33 x 2.5”

Courtesy of the artist

Each series starts with an experience, often a memory. Making the work infuses the past with the present; the story changes each time it is rendered. The genesis for this series, titled Fragments, was moving back to the community where I grew up to help care for my father who has a progressively worsening dementia. At this point, the stories he can hold on to are those that he’s committed to paper, written in earlier years. My father no longer has the words or symbols to recast his memories into meaning for the present or future. Now any joy is immediate –watching the moon rise over the mountains, a bright red bird flitting, a child playing– and the loss, so enduring. It’s hard to hold these two things at once.  In my studio, I arrange and rearrange my own symbols, the ceramic forms that make up my assemblages, searching for coherence or at least meaning. I will keep with this series, hoping that the process will temper the grief, and perhaps one day, I will be able to rewrite these memories of loss into something bigger.

It Was Good to Be There #1, 2016

mixed media: Polaroid photograph and clay

14 x 11 x 1.5”

Courtesy of the artist

Certain objects and places activate feelings, memories, and thoughts, which ebb and flow over time. My quiet images challenge the simultaneity of absence and presence, truth and fiction in photographs. Informed by the experience of displacement, fragmented and multidimensional thoughts compel me to revisit the past, remembering distinct moments, places, and the feelings they summon. Drawing from my photographic archive, the work constructs unlikely places that distort time and space, making psychological navigation tangible. I edit and manipulate this visual information with additive and subtractive approaches. Cutting and pasting, adhering bits of clay, and sewing with thread transport me to charged and meaningful past moments, establishing a palpable, however imagined, space.

Alternate View

Because my kids are away for college, the question I ask them the most is, “Did you eat?” - the same question my mom asked me whenever I was away from home. I have now realized that the simple question, “Did you eat?”, is a mother’s way of saying “I love you.”

Did You Eat? I Love You! presents a Korean homemade dinner table. A mountain-shaped scoop of warm rice next to a bowl of hot soup are the main dishes. Each family would then assemble their own array of side-dishes; many are made from recipes passed down within the family.  Serving a warm meal to her family is how a mother would welcome and care for them. She would even keep the rice bowl warm by placing it inside a cotton blanket. The cotton flower means ‘Mother’s Love’. Using white porcelain, I’ve rebuilt and re-created a resemblance of how my mother presented her dinner table to us, her family.

I love making pottery out of white porcelain, or in Korean Baik-Ja. The white porcelain clay allows me to express warm and natural beauty with exquisite detail. Baik-Ja  was the most popular form of pottery in ancient Korea (Joseon Dynasty).

Alternate View

My practice involves pushing the limits of porcelain physically while mining its potential as a metaphor. Porcelain is fragile, resilient, a priceless art and basic utility. It contains human presence and retains memory of human touch.

Works in this series, Pristine, explore the idea of corporeal corruptibility. How a body, a land, a person can be spoiled, ruined, defiled –or alternately, preserved, kept whole, or clean. The forms conflate bodily and natural shapes to suggest themes of dissolution, contamination, erosion, and the cycle of growth and decay. The scale and presentation, along with the high finish, evoke ideas around display, preservation and perfection.

I used titles as another tool that shape my work. I think about how words and labels affect our perception and even emotions towards an object, place, or fellow human. My titles are integral to the read of each work or series, often having double or symbolic meaning.

Fascinated by repetition and variations, I wanted to investigate what a mark, as elemental as a line, could do. Also, typical of  most of my work, I wanted to challenge the philosophical tradition I have inherited, the one stating that contrasting concepts stand as irreconcilable polar opposites and, consequently, that we live in a world of either/or, a world of exclusion.

One by one, lines were drawn on copper plates and the forms  came to be solely by determining the beginning and end of each line. In the same way, a datum took shape, providing the forms  with a bearing of sort, a reference with which the forms interact.

This method of generating forms, together with the medium

(aquatint), conferred several dual qualities to the work. The forms appear simultaneously heavy and light, floating and sinking, solid and decaying, dark and luminous. We move from mass to lightness, from permanence to ephemerality, or from line to surface without any apparent contradiction, but in a seamless back and forth that blurs definitions. I believe this mirrors our human condition, and I like to think that if the work is at all destabilizing, it is because it brings us away from established norms and closer to our very essence.

Fracture III, second state, 2017

etching, aquatint on Somerset paper

22.25 x 22.5“

Courtesy of the artist

Almost to a fault, I notice everything; the nuances of light and shadow, the intriguing spaces between the positive and negative, and the push and pull of creation are all part of it. So, the imagery created is inspired by the infinite, mysterious, and alluring shapes in nature. The takeaway is what I design.

Forming flat slabs of clay into organic, free flowing forms feels like breathing life into an inanimate object. The rise and fall of each surface along with the bending and curving of the form come together. It’s as though I am creating my own private life form.

These one of a kind, hand-built pieces are burnished which causes the surface to become reflective, extremely smooth, intoxicating, and sensual to the touch. With the addition of horsehair to the hot clay surface, its beauty is unsurpassed.

Animate, 2019

ceramic

16 x 8 x 2.25”

Courtesy of the artist

My inspiration for this print comes from pondering what is occurring in the Arctic. Because of rapidly melting icebergs, polar bears are losing the habitat where they hunt and raise their family. I liken the plight of these poor polar bears to standing on a tight rope. This image of polar bears is my way to visualize the impact of changes to our air, water and earth.

The changes to the climate, brought about by global warming, are the results of greenhouse gases emitted by technologies humans have created. Most of the increase in CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels in internal combustion engines, factories and electric power plants. Humans cut down forests that would otherwise store CO2.

I want to convey the impact of humans and global warming by showing the predicament of polar bears as one of the consequences, to draw attention to our shared concern about the ailing earth.

On the Verge, 2018

litho, drypoint, relief, Chine collé,

hand-coloring and thread

12 x 6“

Courtesy of the artist

Detail

Unity, 2018

ceramic, cone 02-fired, colored slips, stains and glazes 35 x 17 x 13”

Courtesy of the artist

Evidence of process is very significant. The marks of construction are accentuated, rather than hidden. These can be finger marks from coiling and pinching, throwing lines, or broken edges of slabs. Visible signs of the passage of time on objects in nature are important, including the peeling back of layers, erosion and changes in structure.

This piece is one of a series exploring vessel forms. The clay used is mid-range white stoneware. For additional texture in the clay body, I add homemade grog, sand, perlite, rice, etc. to clay. I coil-build, using paddles, scrapers and other tools to alter form and surface at all stages of work, including bone dry. Glaze applied to exterior and wiped off. Work is fired in a gas kiln with light reduction to cone 5-6.

Weathered Flat, 2018

clay

17 x 13.5 x 5.5”

Courtesy of the artist

School Shootings: Hung Out to Dry, 2018

collograph, clothes pins, rope

24 x 67 x 3“

Courtesy of the artist

I have been asked, many times, to explain my work, and I do not think there is one explanation that works all the time. I started with photography and ended up with printmaking. I am also a biologist, and that influences my work. I gravitate to printmaking because I can use it to explore making many kinds of imagery that express a variety of things about what I see and love about the natural world.

My images are experimental, at the margins of traditional printmaking practice. I am interested in composition, love, color, and seldom edition my prints. I like to combine different styles of printmaking (etching, relief, lithography) in conceptual ways. For this work, School Shootings: Hung Out to Dry, I am struggling with a way to help end these horrific school shootings and gun violence, in general. Last year I hosted a pop-up exhibition called Don’t Shoot Me Down  that focused on gun violence. I am very sad that kids have been hung out to dry while we try to find a corrective legislative solution.

It is beyond troubling that these school shootings continue. At the same time, it seems hard to get the corrective legislation passed. I think the kids have been “hung out to dry” while we figure out the solution.

Abuelita  is a cultural representation of my grandmother, Gregorita Meir y Gardunio y Lujan y Pacheco, the matriarch of my paternal family. Small in stature, she had floor length white hair tipped blonde because she had never cut it since she was in her teens. She lived to be 102 years old.

Abuelita, 2018

hand-pulled woodcut on Japanese washi paper

26 x 14“

Courtesy of the artist

Alternate View

Handle with Care, 2017

assemblage floorpiece: ceramic, artist

china, vintage found objects, coco mat

46 x 32 x 47”

Courtesy of the artist

The ‘bull in a china shop’ idiom is turned on itself in the ceramic and oxide sculpture Handle with Care. A toy bull, after assaulting a stack of china, twists with rage as a shattered platter pierces his side and stuffing spills out. I used my own wedding china to create this piece giving the china a chance to get even

.

In all my work there is a whimsy with a dark side. My personal narrative uses innocent childhood imagery like teddy bears, toys, and puppets to create the reactionary expressions of my inner emotional life. When something happens to me and triggers a buried emotion, a lost sentiment or a hidden pain, I must reconstruct and resurrect it outside of myself and find the story behind it.

Combining assemblage with ceramics fills my current body of work. The homespun construction and textured surfaces simulate threadbare fabric and tattered fur.

I select materials based on their authenticity to my process. I choose clay because of its fragility, its relationship to the earth, and its tradition in arts and craft. I incorporate recycled materials such as wood and found objects because of their nostalgia and reference to aging, decay and decomposition.

This sculptural plate appears to be an American Standard porcelain sink filled with water, with dishes left soaking. The dishes are from a dinner for two and have been placed in the sink while the couple watches television. The water is melted glass and appears to have soapy foam along some plates and a bit of grease scum on the water, indicating the dishes have been there a while. It is T.V. Time.

If the objects in our life could speak, I wonder what tales they would tell.

You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen that often to people who break easily... –The Velveteen Rabbit

Prophet, 2019

ink on paper

8.5 x 11“

Courtesy of the artist

Once I achieved the height, volume, and delicate lean of this clay vessel, I carved in the design onto the surface. The earthy tone of my vessel, and its tree-trunk-like posture, remind me of one’s ultimate need to belong to and be connected to a land, as a tree is.

This idea of a homeland is mirrored in the design on the surface of the trunk –an abstract hint of landscape receding into the distance. It is as if the surface of the piece is reflecting the emotional landscape that surrounds it.

My tall tree trunk vessel is built by throwing and slab. I applied under glaze to define the textures and fired it in cone 6.

Land, 2019

ceramic

23.5 x 7 x 7”

Courtesy of the artist

Over the past few years I have been working on sculptural forms that are simplified abstractions indicative of monumental landforms. Previously my sculptures were abstractions of the human figure. These abstracted forms and surface textures have moved further away from any likeness of the human form. Instead, they now take on the appearance of ancient stone markers or stelae.

Clay is a primary material for me because its tactile nature allows for a vast range of forms and surfaces. The fired clay can show qualities of soft malleability and, at the same time, express the hard permanence of stone. Fired clay can also present a variety of colors and surface qualities not found in stone or bronze. The forms in my sculptures are constructed of torn clay slabs pressed and paddled into the planes and curves of these abstracted forms.

I have learned over the years to trust my instincts; to explore the direction the work is taking without imposing a set of ideas or stipulations on the work. My process is intuitive and visceral rather than directed and imposed. I feel this allows things both conscious and subconscious to come into being.

Moon Rock, 2018

fired stoneware

38 x 26 x 16”

Courtesy of the artist

The impact of man on place is more evident than ever. I am trying to communicate the fragility, impermanence, and beauty of life through the depiction of deceased or vulnerable animals.

Still Waters Run Deep, 2018

digital mixed-media, colored

pencils, mono-print

21 x 16“

Courtesy of the artist

Detail

Apollo’s Eye, 23, 2019

gesso, ink on paper

35 x 35“

Courtesy of the artist

The Greek and Roman god Apollo drives the sun’s golden chariot across the sky, commanding a transcendent view of the earth that, prior to 20th century human spaceflight, we knew only in dreams and the imagination. From his dispassionate and omniscient viewpoint, Apollo embodies a desire for wholeness, transcendence, and global dominion that has been actualized today across geopolitical, economic, technological and cultural realms.

These could be images of what he sees, or we could invert Apollo’s omniscient gaze and look back into his eye, examining the mechanism of sight itself: how is perception and imagination constructed on the retinal surface, the site where wavelengths of light turn into neural electric signal, the surface boundary between our external and internal worlds.

Gesso is applied to paper, various densities of India ink are applied to the surface, and through myriad degrees of absorption and resistance, a plethora of latent textures emerge. Whites absorb blacks, blacks reveal whites; the movement and interaction through the material surface reveals texture and form, just as the movement of light through the light sensitive rods and cones of the retina stimulates the optic nerves, creating electrical signals interpreted as light and dark, texture and form.

The Topsy-Turvy  vessel is based on a found object, repurposed through the technique of plaster mold making, poured porcelain slip, reconfiguration and firing at 1200 degrees. My intention to create a whimsical object slightly off balance did not reflect our world climate at first glance, but the more I work on each section the more I associated our globe and the topsy-turvy times we live in.

I am a native New York City artist who works in a variety of media including drawing, painting, and sculpture. My practice is an essential part of my life as both an act of meditation and a method of observing and understanding my environment. My work investigates and reconstructs everyday items to clarify the nature of existence and find poetic meaning in daily life. As such, I try to create works that do not follow logical criteria but are based only on intuitive associations and a desire to make a connection with the viewer.

Topsy-turvy, 2019

white porcelain vessel

7.5 x 5 x 5”

Courtesy of the artist

Alternate View

I like making containers. Teapots and jars and even lidded cups. Somehow, I like the symbolism of putting a lid on it, keeping it contained. However, no matter how you compartmentalize your life reality will leak in and truth will come out. Lately I have spent a lot of time thinking of alcoholic beverages and past times. Was the past really better? For who and why? Did time serve as filter to soften the harsh realities of past? Was it the youth which made us ignorant or just the passage of time? People often reminisce over drinks, but then hangover and reality sinks in. I want people to just look and think rather than drown their sorrows over not living in the idealized past.

Drowning in Memories, 2019

ceramics

16 x 22 x 8”

Courtesy of the artist

Often art is seen as an introverted, solitary experience involving serious thought and messages. Frequently overlooked are the examples of the lighter side of human existence – comedy. Art, like life, is a balance between comedy and tragedy. Shakespeare’s darkest plays were balanced with keen wit and humor. My intent in much of my artwork is to reveal the purpose of humor in art and to show that, in art, comedy and tragedy are dependent on each other for a deeper understanding of the human condition.

Sprouts, 2018

ceramic

19.5 x 14 x 5”

Courtesy of the artist

In my video art, stop-motion animation (aka “claymation”) is the perfect art medium for trying to make sense of the inexplicable with its inherently ominous quality. I wouldn’t call myself an “animator” in the traditional sense, since my work is more of an art piece where the visuals, metaphors, and combination of music and emotion are more important than a rational storyline and how the characters move. I prefer the choppiness of stop-motion animation, where the puppets move in a somewhat broken or disjointed manner, as this adds a layer of complexity reminding us of our imperfections while also hinting at something unpredictable. It helps that unpredictability is essential to any kind of filmmaking.

The Paper, 2016

video art, stop-action claymation

2 minutes 44 seconds

Courtesy of the artist

Alternate View

Urn Series, 2019

clay

14 x 9 x 9”

Courtesy of the artist

Spazieren Gehen - Going for a Spring Walk, 2017

acrylic, ink and paper on linen

48 x 84.5“

Courtesy of the artist

Spazieren Gehen  (translation Going for a Stroll ) layers paper on linen in an exploration of thought formation. I explore this process through a practice of “almost writing” that appears both in page-like rectangles and in a bright cloud composed of lines and nearly letters in various scripts. I made this in Berlin in the spring, the season of regeneration –of tying up old projects and starting anew. The canvas creates a sky-blue environment for actual or imagined projects– be they of making art, writing texts or other kinds of projects from home renovation to to-do lists. In contrast to the floating yet distinctly framed “projects,” a large cloud in the center blossoms and buzzes with color and line. The collage is built up of layer upon layer of dyed and painted transparent silk paper.

The piece was one of several I made in the context of ethnographic fieldwork I did in Berlin in 2016-2017. For that project, I used art to study scholars and their practices at an institute of advanced research. “Almost writing” is a technique I first developed to explore the difficulties of getting one’s thoughts down in writing, but it has since come to be about any struggle to create.

My current work is inspired by the individual’s relationship with industrial equipment along with exploring expectations of ceramic vessels. While the development of new technology is celebrated by some, it also frightens and intimidates others. At times in human history, ingenuity leads to temporary successes with unseen consequences appearing down the line. The solution to one

“problem” can lead to an unpredictable repercussion. Reflecting on the current state of the environment and lifestyle of the world’s population, the success of humans relationship with their own technology becomes questionable. I am inspired by engines, agriculture equipment, chemical apparatus, and space technology.

I am using the ceramic medium and its assumed fragility to explore mankind's relationship with machines. The modern importance of ceramic vessels for transportation and storage of resources is often overlooked. Using clay to transcribe the industrial vessels and apparatus brings them into a modern context with historical roots.

Quod Opus, 2017

ceramic

28 x 11 x 12”

Courtesy of the artist

Experiences of time and place are the source for much of my imagery. The inspiration for this image is a poem about mysterious and powerful female beings. My goal is to synthesize influences while maintaining my own iconography.

Through images of objects and the creation of environments, I reference experiences that are part of my daily life. The process becomes a negotiation that provides the framework for my interpretation of those experiences on an intimate and personal level, and as it relates to contemporary society. When you have time to think, to be, you see within an experience.

Bend the Air, 2018

woodcut

13 x 9.5“

Courtesy of the artist

Deaf Ear, 2019

porcelain, ball-point pen, cotton, wood 5.5 x 4 x 3.5”

Courtesy of the artist

The ribcage has turned up in my work to explore notions of protection. This anatomical cage (above) is rendered on a delicate, found antique tea plate. Hard and soft, I am exploring many manifestations of being feminine and strong. As an acupuncturist, my relationship to the body has changed. I often use metaphor in both my practice and my artwork. This particular piece is an exploration on my feelings of grief and loss on a found object. It is rendered in a sort of pen and ink drawing method using china paint and fired low to cone 018. The lungs, in Chinese medicine, are the organ that feels inspiration and grief. I have exposed the lungs and shown the tears emanating from them.

My art reflects the feelings and thoughts of the people who have experienced vicissitudes in life: those who are pushed to the edge of death during war time, those who suffer through difficult living condition while escaping communism to seek freedom, and those who struggle to assimilate in a new country. We Vietnamese, in general, develop complex and restrained emotions. To survive despite the desperate situation, we reinforce ourselves with optimistic attitudes.

The formal qualities of my work are equally important. I use thick and thin layers of pigments, ambiguous and conflicting spatial arrangements, powerful and energetic brushstrokes versus tranquil and soft line to enhance an overall dynamic outlook. When the visual elements align with my feelings, it’s time for the actions to stop.

A Female Refugee’s Story, 2019

litho print with acrylic

42 x 50 x 1.5”

Courtesy of the artist

Census data shows that, on average, a person will move a total of 11.7 times in their lifetime. I moved twelve times before turning eighteen and a total of twenty-five by the time I was thirty-five.

I’m an imagemaker by education and profession, and this is my first autobiographical work using hand-built ceramic objects in place of images to tell the story.

Being new to ceramics, my work takes on a purposeful low-craft sensibility with a level of playful, childlike sophistication which underscore the overall narrative of my life that is demonstrated in the houses. Each house is approximately the same shape  and size with slight variations that come with hand building.  I use the size and simplicity of form combined with the coloring and glazing to denote the physical and emotional transition throughout each move.

Moving: A Life in 25 Houses,  2019

ceramic and chalk floorpiece

installation, composed of

several ceramic parts/objects

7 x 4 x 4” each house

Courtesy of the artist

Wailing Wall, 2018

ink and paper

14.875 x 21.375“

Courtesy of the artist

My interests are in the human condition and how different individuals, groups and cultures have taken the intangibles of their lives and translated them into a tangible form. Intellectual, emotional and spiritual dialogues with life manifest themselves in many ways. Being surrounded by numerous manifestations of thought, form, play, love, death, disguise and faith, they speak to me about myself. Seeking to make the intangible tangible and the tangible meaningful, I engage in the creative process for its own sake and to bring into being internal thoughts, feelings and visualizations. The works are symbolic representations of the world in which we act, interact and define ourselves.

The Wailing Wall is an expression of the deep regret for those elements of my family’s life and the lives of others that were missed or ignored due to my entanglements that too often filled my life.

This glass rendering is called the Golfer. It shows how one can be completely isolated from the world and its built environment with air pollution and traffic noise.

Here, he is alone but not lonely. He is master of his domain. This is his sanctuary and his haven. The golfer is communicating with nature at its highest level.

I chose high fire enamel ink to sketch this in glass, and then fired it at 1500 degrees in my kiln.

The Golfer, 2018

ink on glass

12 x 10 x 1”

Courtesy of the artist

Behind the Wire  depicts a subject that has been of great concern to me, due to my childhood background. The displacement of people is now a world-wide problem due to social ill, war, and economic distress. This print depict women behind barbed wire, displaced, possibly for their own protection or for problems that are not of their own making. The women look beyond the wire, into an unforgiving future.

Behind the Wire, 2018

monotype

14 x 21“

Courtesy of the artist

We are surrounded and bombarded by color, but the tonality of a monochromatic print has the power to stop us in our tracks. Unsaturated images command our attention because shape, form, texture, context, and the play of light and shadow are simplified with sharpness and freshness. They enable us to focus on the subject. They are “easy” on the eye.

Anita Seltzer is a photographer/printmaker, and as an ardent preservationist, has been memorializing historic landmarks and artifacts. She transforms her digital photographs into intaglio etchings using non-toxic photopolymer plates because she values the effort and skill needed to patiently create hand-pulled “one at a time” prints. The original images don’t rely on altered-reality manipulations. And the finished prints can’t be mechanically mass produced with the stroke of a computer key. Etchings have been created for centuries by the world’s greatest artists. The use of non-toxic photopolymer plates brings the intaglio tradition into  the 21st century.

Edith Wharton Tablescape, 2018

photopolymer intaglio etching, plate

Hahnemuhle Copperplate etching

paper, Akua Ink, Charles Brand Press.

10.25 x 7.620”

Courtesy of the artist

Is it real, or is it a trick of the eye? Trompe l’oeil  is the art of illusion, a game, that artists play with viewers to challenge their ideas about the nature of art and perception. I transform everyday objects and mementos of life into clay sculptures.

To a casual observer, my sculptures appear real –a toppled cardboard box overflowing with trash– a crossword puzzle, newspaper clippings, paintbrushes, a key chain, etc. In reality, they are still-life clay sculptures: manipulated, molded, and printed upon. The printed clay “papers” are made by printing on the wet clay with underglazes using artist-made printing blocks.

I love the challenge of making clay objects appear real. It forces me to use all of my former clay experience and a variety of tools. For instance, how am I going to make a texture appear on a suitcase or handbag? I want the viewer to interact with my pieces– and take a second glance. I want them to remember an experience they had in the past or perhaps a story they read.

When you view my sculptures it is not what you see… “It’s clay.”

Emptied Box, 2017

stoneware and porcelain

and underglazes

12 x 10 x 12”

Courtesy of the artist

I started photographing discarded items in the desert, leaving small ceramic sculptures as a type of cairn to mark spots where I had visited or picked up trash. This led to further investigation of artifact versus trash and how archaeologist use trash piles to date historically significant sites. In an act of cleaning the landscape, I inadvertently erased a future archaeological marker. The act of leaving a cairn and collecting trash became symbols, or a tick on a timeline, that had now become erased. My current work investigates the ”human mark” on the landscape and the contrast of urban environments and uninhabited areas of the Mojave desert. This series of ceramic slip cast ashtrays are a nod to souvenirs from roadside attractions of a past era and commentary on current environmental concerns.

I seek to negotiate the elements of material and form through this non-representational work with the aim of harmoniously balancing the two, creating visually pleasing results. My materials are restricted to paper, ceramics, pigments, and light, and I seek to explore their potentialities at the most basic level. Without preconceived notions, I proceed with an openness to discovery, allowing my work to transform with new properties of and relationships between the materials revealing themselves.  The attentive consideration of the formal elements of line, form,  texture, and composition give shape to my work. The guiding principle in my compositions is the very possibility of beauty; the chance to create pleasure out of seemingly simple visual forms. The technical and intellectual challenge of mediating a successful interchange of both material and formal elements with visually pleasing results brings to light my aim to create art for the purest experience of art: the unfiltered moment in which the viewer is, perhaps inexplicably, satisfied and thrilled. This is what gives the work, as well as my practice, meaning.

Formal Considerations, 2019

porcelain, paper

6 x 5 x 3”

Courtesy of the artist

In works on paper that are simultaneously free flowing and highly structured, I impose a set of rules that govern the ordering and repetition of marks or gestures. I investigate the potential of these systems to generate intricate patterns and unexpectedly evocative forms.

From a distance, each composition suggests a tonal field of grey and black with subtle variation in texture and depth. Drawing closer, the marks become visible, gradually revealing greater complexity over time. Slowly, like an object coming into focus under a microscope, the logic of the work becomes discernible, even as the particulars of execution remain elusive. Just as I become lost in the experience of making, I want the viewer to be immersed in the temporality of seeing.

I have been working on four distinct series: Between The Lines; In Motion; Continuous Line; and Decelerating. While each reflects a different set of assumptions and rules, all manifest the concept of automatic repetition of a committed line.

Out Of Darkness  is part of the In Motion  series, consisting of repeated undulating lines, superimposed over each other to create layered textures, giving an appearance of depth and mirroring the gestural arm motion used to create them.

Out of Darkness, 2018

etching and aquatint; Sharpie-resist drawing on

copper plate

17 x 16”

Courtesy of the artist

Industrial Impressionism, 2018

two-color silkscreen print on

canvas mounted to board, ed. 1 of 3

18 x 24 x 1”

Courtesy of the artist

We were watching The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution, a four-part series chronicling various impressionist artists, painting techniques and their lives. The narrator described the Impressionists as revolutionaries who saw the world in a new way. While the Impressionists were revolutionaries, they portrayed, not saw, the world in a new way. The thought of seeing the world in a new way led to the Seeing Red series, pieces that are created with the intent of being viewed through a filter, allowing you to deconstruct or focus on different parts of the finished piece. Industrial Impressionism  combines a classic impressionist still life and a contemporary assemblage of related consumer products. This is an edition that is presented in various color combinations.

Filters are supplied with the work for viewing while on exhibition. Viewing the image through the filter reveals a hidden yet poignant juxtaposition of subject matter.

For ten years I have been combining high-relief form with line. Almost all of my sculptures for the wall are based upon figurative drawings from life. Expanding portions of these two-dimensional drawings into variations of three-dimensional makes for interesting perspectives, shapes, and sometimes surprising forms. The resulting sculpture is more real to me than the drawing because the drawing is only an illusion.

The sparse fluid line brushed across the surface of this relief sculpture captures the relaxed loving nature of this couple. By working in high relief I’m able to combine the best of both worlds –drawing on a smooth undulating surface combined with the heightened reality and strength of three-dimensional clay form and mass.

I aim for free-flowing movement of my brush across the smooth silky form. If I have expanded the form correctly, the brush will find its own way over the undulating form in the correct direction. I sometimes think of my work as expanded drawings. Working this way I can best present the human condition as I see it

Alternate View

The Couple, 2017

ceramic wall sculpture in high-relief;

based on life drawing, raised slab

construction

24 x 18 x 6.5”

Courtesy of the artist

This new woodcut print explores order, chaos, and entropy. This value-based print take visual cues from the natural and manufactured resources: salvaged trees, rebar, concrete, discarded clothes, deconstructed architecture and disused vehicle parts interwoven, tangled and refigured visually in space. The imagery is informed by site visits, forensic photography, first-hand accounts and evidence of changed/damaged/evolving environments.

Glade, 2019

woodcut print with aluminum

tape in a Ribba frame

20 x 28”

Courtesy of the artist

Investigations on the origins of life, the very universe itself, and our place in the grand scheme of it all, defies easy pictorial representation. Nature has become a convention used by artists over the centuries to characterize this inquiry –a tradition I continue to pursue in my work.

A love of nature’s rugged beauty and majesty has inspired me to combine two beloved  practices –hiking and painting. Years of drawing and painting outdoors have yielded the invented and imagined images found in my work. Unique, hand-made books, utilizing  traditional book structures, reflect a lifetime devotion to reading and art-making.

My artist’s books are created to be intimate and tactile; the mere act of holding the book in their hands engages and seduces the viewer to participate in a unique and private dialogue. The content of this particular book includes a narrative alongside the images, reflecting the passage of time, for humans and trees.

Will these images be all that are left of a bountiful nature?

Alternate View

AB/610/19, Artist’s Book, 2019

printer’s ink, acrylic, gouache, graphite

8.75 x 23 x .75”

Courtesy of the artist

Marvin, 2018

clay, acrylic and ink

18.5 x 19.5 x 16.25”

Courtesy of the artist

Alternate Views

I am captivated by biomorphic shapes. My approach to form is done in a non-objective intuitive manner, often referred to as “organic abstraction.” The shapes that I work with and create are a direct reflection of my interests in life, including my love for art, music, nature, traveling and hiking throughout the world. As in nature, my shapes take on a figurative style.

I allow the process to develop naturally without any preconception of what I will create. The influences in my life have created a strong focus on color, organic shapes and design elements in my work. My abstract references to shapes are executed using water-based clay in my sculptures with acrylic and ink. All my sculptures remain as originals without reproduction.

The creative process is deeply personal. It is an expression of my life’s journey, my beliefs and the depths of who I am.

A Book of Maps, 2017

monoprint collage with graphite

and hand-stitching

24 x 36.5“

Courtesy of the artist

I am interested in the patterns of nature. This monoprint collage is a study of the geological layers that exist in the landscape. The layers are frozen in time, recording the history of a particular place. My eyes are cameras with lenses both microscopic and wide-angled. I record the landscape observant of these opposites. When viewed from a distance, the composition could be seen as a larger landscape, but when inspected closely, the textures and individual layers have more character. This monoprint measures the differences in the landscape, using the horizontal striations balanced by the printed line as a datum.

Much of my early work was marked by a gutsy quality and a celebration of the shibui character of many Japanese artforms. My early series of ceramic pieces features rough surfaces, dark colors and, in many cases, a feeling of age. Some of them bore elements of calligraphy. Message  continues this series, but attempts to be more subtle and more mysterious –suggesting a secret message... perhaps. While earlier vessels used ancient runes or patterns that hint at strange letters, Message  is simpler and more abstract. It never quite clearly gives a message, only suggests its possibility.  Message  moves on from the innocence of youth to the awareness of deeper meanings in maturity.

Message, 2018

clay

17 x 12 x 3.5”

Courtesy of the artist

People are moving in and out on a global scale. Once in a while, we come together, but it will never be same. The looped line expresses our infinite passage.

Infinite Passage, 2017

intaglio and mixed media

18 x 24“

Courtesy of the artist

Sharing a Sprig 1  is a reduction woodcut depicting two moths sharing a sprig of grass. Peter Van Ael’s creative research is informed by his interest in pattern, camouflage, mimicry, layering, and relative scale. His studio practice is focused on the reduction woodcut. He finds inspiration in both the natural and human-made worlds, creating works from observation and interpretation, rather than documenting his environment.

Sharing a Sprig 1, 2018 reduction woodcut

20 x 16“

Courtesy of the artist

Over the last few years, my prints and related drawings have focused on issues surrounding animal abuse, the environment, and the decline of the natural world as I once knew it. The Adored and Aggrieved  pairs the image of a “Praiseworthy Chicken” as conceived in ancient religions and cultures, with a huddled flock of “industrial chickens,” demeaned and awaiting an unsavory fate. If it was once thought of as a symbol of wisdom, courage and maternal love, today the chicken has largely lost its lofty place in our imagination as well as its ability to live its life and express itself naturally in the everyday world. The differences and inequities seen in this print between the revered bird and its lumpen, maltreated cousins could also echo our own divided class and social structures.

My principal medium is color woodcut –hand-printed from a single block using a reductive process and multiple acetate stencils.

The Adored and Aggrieved, 2018

reductive woodcut and stencils

17 x 14“

Courtesy of the artist

Each of my pieces in this particular series are folk tales of finding confidence in adversity. They are igniting their own beauty, bravery, and power from something uncomfortable - in coming to terms with a personal truth. Imagined in characters and forms that are cracked, quirky, or imperfect, these pieces aim to invoke a feeling of vulnerability, yet create a sense of fortitude in their risk and exposure. Their confidence is strengthened by a sense of purpose.

Whenever Her Mother Turned Her Head  illustrates the course of making light of a heavyweight #MeToo.

Whenever Her Mother Turned Her Head, 2019

ceramic

23.5 x 14 x 14”

Courtesy of the artist

Hallucination #16, 2019

India ink, charcoal on paper

26 x 22“

Courtesy of the artist