Curatorial Statement
Exhibition Posted Online: Monday, March 10, 2025 at 10 am MT
Closing reception with artists on Friday, April 25, 2025 from 5-7pm (free and open to the public)
Kyle and Lauren are two artists whose approach to making includes pushing the boundaries of ceramic materials. Their work is detailed, colorful, and innovative, and demonstrates the unlimited possibilities of our materials that result from hours of dedicated research and testing.
This exhibition coincides with our free spring workshop presented by Kyle and Lauren, April 26-27, 2025. Workshop registration will open in March 2025.
Kyle Johns:
My work uses the vessel to explore various degrees of form, function, and sculptural considerations. From my interest in contemporary design, I playfully experiment with new solutions with the intention to conjure feelings for leisure, desire, and rarity embedded in domestic objects.
Using the traditionally rigid process of mold making that is at the core of industrial production; I deconstruct and reassemble plaster mold positives to create a multitude of unique forms. The work is created organically, responding to the possibilities and limitations of the process and material. Through play, variation and modification, I look to change simple variables to create new methods and possibilities. I often reference domestic forms that are familiar, as a means to draw a broader connection to my work. These objects exist in the grey area between vessel and sculpture, and question the boundaries of design. Through my work I hope to explore the various degrees of function, from the practical to the sculptural, while generating new ideas for uses, forms, and processes.
Lauren Mabry:
I make ceramic vessels, objects, and dimensional paintings by combining traditional and experimental methods with clay and glaze. I investigate materiality though experimentation that is driven by my fascination with color, visual movement, and the transformative nature of ceramics. Primarily my work communicates directly, through its formal and aesthetic qualities, but it may also be understood in relationship to abstract painting, minimal work, and Process Art. Surface is often the focal point of my work, and therefore the forms I make are a reaction to how a glaze performs. My goal is to create dynamic compositions that push the boundaries of how these materials are perceived. Because I strive to keep my work as playful as it is scientific, the things I make exist where haphazard sketching meets the accuracy of chemistry. The rich, flowing glazes create hypnotic tones, textures, and forms which aim to please and bewilder.