Curatorial Statement
Exhibition Posted Online: Monday, August 7, 2023 at 10 am MT
Judith Salomon is Professor Emeritus from the Cleveland Institute of Art where she taught Ceramics from 1977-2016. She received her B.F.A from The School for American Craftsman, Rochester Institute of Technology where she had the opportunity to spend her Junior year at the Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina. She was awarded her M.F.A from The New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University, and has exhibited in museums and galleries all over the world.
She is represented in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Los Angeles Museum of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Manchester City Art Galleries in England, The National Museum of History in Taiwan, Mint Museum of Art, The Racine Art Museum and numerous private collections. Her work is included in many books such as, Post Modern Ceramics, History of American Ceramics, and The Artful Teapot. She has received two Ohio Arts Council Artist Fellowship, a national Endowment for the Arts and has been awarded the Victor Scheckengost Teaching Award at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Artist Statement:
Judith’s slab-built and slip-cast vessels and other objects are inspired by her love of architecture. She describes her work as an exploration of ideas related to “containers and containment, [or] how [the] insides and outsides [of an object] work together.” Steeped in art history, Salomon draws on specific stylistic influences such as Russian Constructivism, Color Field painting, and the influence of collage on the 20th century. Other influences such as domestic space(s), the built urban landscape, contemporary Japanese packaging design, and the interaction between the object and the viewer’s touch are also important references.
As Judith describes, “these vessels are intended for use and contemplation. When they are full of food, flowers, or mail. They have one visual meaning relating to function; when they are empty, they can be viewed and appreciated as sculptural objects. The way two building walls meet, the way a banana sits next to a peach in a bowl, the way a sidewalk meets a curb…all these images are purposely selected and funneled into a dictionary of images in my mind that eventually become integrated into the aesthetics of my work.” Recently Salomon has been pushing towards the idea of pure form over that of functionality as demonstrated in the new ceramic ‘paintings’ that she has been making; reveling in the contrast of form, color, hue, texture, surface of her materials: clay, glaze, and heat.