​Ceramic Sanctuary
Andrew Snyder, Bryan Hopkins, Mark Errol, and Rachel Eng
Curated by Emily Manko
September 23rd – December 2nd, 2017 | Reception Saturday, October 14, 1-5
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This exhibition brings together four artists who exemplify the exciting breadth of contemporary ceramics. Each artist’s work challenges the viewer to reconsider their understanding of and relationship with the medium of clay.

Through the use of traditional and non-traditional techniques, these artists showcase the remarkable versatility of the clay medium and its wide ranging powers of articulation on subjects from architecture and function to personal and social spheres.

​Rachel Eng is interested in the parts necessary to a whole: aggregates and accumulations of many small forms become monumental together. The duality of control and the unpredictable in life is considered in the balance between our actions on our planet and the wildness of nature and climate.
 
Bryan Hopkins’ porcelain vessels engage with ideas of structure, architecture, containment, and permanence, pushing clay as far as it will go, firing to a very high temperature in a reduction atmosphere. He states, “Porcelain is associated with the upper class, and is seen as fragile and pure. My use of industrial textures and loose style of construction questions those assumptions. The surfaces and designs bring my working class roots to porcelain vessels.”
 
Mark Eroll intends for his work to be handled and used as much as possible. His functional ceramic forms become part of personal ritual, everyday acts of nourishment and enjoyment. Mugs, bowls, plates, jars, vases and a myriad of other useful objects are canvases for an abundance of color, pattern and narrative that elevate the often overlooked vessels in our daily lives.
 
Andrew Snyder’s current body of work, Mark of of a Day, is a search for the perfect bowl (ultimately futile he thinks), and also a documenting of process. As much focused on the act of making as on the end result, Snyder utilizes the boredom of repetition, while making, to meditate upon what specific qualities he is looking for in a bowl. Fabric underlays, placed below the wheel during throwing, capture traces of the physical and meditative work, and become wall pieces; multiple artefacts of the complexities of process then remain.