{"id":65754,"date":"2018-05-30T10:37:17","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T08:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=65754"},"modified":"2019-05-02T12:00:23","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T12:00:23","slug":"ceramic-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/ceramic-artists\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ceramic Artists Fuelling Our Obsession With Clay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"An artist\u2019s choice of medium is a political one. Avant-gardists throughout history have toyed with the hierarchy of medium, ditching bourgeois painting and sculpture for less academic practices such as collage, printmaking and photography. As technological advances accelerate, contemporary artists are met with the immense challenge of \u201ckeeping up with the times\u201d. Yet despite the digital art craze, there are some artists standing defiantly in opposition, whose M\/O is, above all, to get their hands dirty. In recent years, clay \u2014 a material as old as art itself \u2014 has been seeping its way into the contemporary art world thanks to innovators, who are seeking to \u201cre-shape\u201d our preconceived notions of the material. Here, we profile five influential ceramic artists who are exchanging function for form and the title of artisan for artist. In examining their work, it\u2019s clear that the world\u2019s most ancient art form is anything but over. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ramesh Nithiyendran<\/b><\/h1>\n

\"\"
\nAlthough he\u2019s a self-taught ceramicist, Ramesh Nithiyendran heralds from a painting background. He believes that his roots in painting have allowed him to understand \u201cthe formal relationships that exist when you\u2019re making a ceramic object\u201d. Nithiyendran makes installations reminiscent of Rauschenberg\u2019s combines, but with a neo-primitivist vigour that evokes Basquiat \u2014 his masterful command over texture, surface, colour and transparency elevate his work from the earthy to the divine. As an artist, Nithiyendran harnesses the fluidity of the medium to provoke a conversation around the body and sexuality. His fearless exploration of the carnal and cosmic results in the construction of deities and anti-deities with an emphatically bold presence, commanding fear and respect all at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brian Rochefort<\/b><\/h1>\n

\"\"Though initially accepted to art school for printmaking and drawing, Rochefort’s decision to pursue ceramics was partially inspired by the medium\u2019s lack of popularity. \u201cI thought it was an underrated material at the time and that I could push its boundaries a bit.\u201d His unique ability as an artist hinges on his use of order to create chaos \u2014 his vessels seem to implode and explode simultaneously, like alien sea corals fighting the laws of physics. Rochefort draws inspiration from geological forms everywhere, from the Galapagos to East Africa, pulling from the familiar and rendering it extraordinary. Shapes that resemble conglomerations of snot, semen, mould, dust and dirt are made alluring due to Rochefort\u2019s command over colour and combination. <\/span><\/p>\n

Cristina Tufi\u00f1o<\/b><\/h1>\n

\"\"Tufi\u00f1o \u201cthinks conceptually about material\u201d and lists clay as just one of the many tactile materials she uses in her practice. Tufi\u00f1o is known for her surreal sculptures in tropical gradients, which elegantly distort familiar forms. Drawing from a colourful pool of Brazilian, Mexican and Puerto Rican references, Tufi\u00f1o defamiliarises corporal forms and personifies objects in order to construct new idols and effigies. Her Freudian \u201ccombines\u201d harness the power of the uncanny and evoke the dreamlike and surreal. Tufi\u00f1o is a self-described \u201carcheologist hoarder\u201d, whose sculptures invite viewers to decipher \u201criddled mythical narratives\u201d. Her aesthetic draws from the virtual world and more closely resembles CGI graphics than your average kiln-fired urn. <\/span><\/p>\n

Diana Rojas<\/b><\/h1>\n

\"\"Diana Rojas\u2019 work is a witty reflection of fashion\u2019s \u201chype\u201d culture. Her surprising ability to recreate this season\u2019s trendiest footwear out of clay has garnered her significant attention from both the art and fashion worlds. Her manual dexterity generates a striking incidence of\u00a0trump l\u2019oeil<\/em>, forcing sneakerheads and hypebeasts to do a double take. As enjoyable as her work is on a surface level, her sculptures beckon broader questions around consumerist culture and the principle of commodity fetish. Drawing on the legacy of Duchamp, Rojas eliminates the function of her chosen footwear, thereby glorifying its pure form. Ironically, Rojas is frustrated by her audience\u2019s incentive to put her artwork to use. \u201cI think a lot of ceramics are deemed unworthy if they aren\u2019t functional. People are more open to accepting ceramic as vessel as opposed to sculpture\u201d. Rojas would like to let the record show that her shoe sculptures are not planters, and never will be. <\/span><\/p>\n

Seth Bogart <\/b><\/h1>\n

\"\"
\nQueer punk icon Seth Bogart is a quite literally a pottery class drop-out. Bogart was first inspired to explore the medium after seeing the work of Magdalena Suarez Frimkiss. His practice is a tactile manifestation of his wonderfully flamboyant universe \u2014 one that is characterised by the intersection of humour and an expression of queer identity. After all, Bogart’s retro, flamboyant aesthetic pays tribute to his idol and muse, John Waters. In ceramic, Bogart reinvents everyday objects, making them all the more merry by his embracement of the wonky and imperfect. In explaining how his ceramic pieces have changed over the years, Bogart says, \u201cMost of my new work is pretty perverted\u201d. In his hands, sex and fetish items are rendered silly and inviting, transformed from the illicit into the cartoon. The joy of Bogart\u2019s artwork lies in its radical candour and joyous sense of subversion.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We meet the 21st century clay-makers giving new life to the medium \u2014 and affirming it’s rightful position in contemporary art.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[263,10636,2206,10637,10638,10639,10640,10641],"class_list":["post-65754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-balenciaga","tag-brian-rochefort","tag-ceramics","tag-clay","tag-cristina-tufino","tag-diana-rojas","tag-ramesh-nithiyendran","tag-seth-bogart"],"acf":{"legacy":true,"main_category":false,"exclude_from_ads":[],"hero_title":"","subtitle":"","hero":{"video":false,"image":false,"header_color":"black","overlay_color":"","overlay_text_color":"black"},"teasers":{"video":false,"image":false,"width":"4","proportion":"default"},"facebook_image":false,"related_articles":"","next_article":"","content":false},"yoast_head":"\n5 Ceramic Artists Fuelling Our Obsession With Clay 5 Ceramic Artists Fuelling Our Obsession With Clay<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We meet the 21st century clay-makers giving new life to the medium \u2014 and affirming it's rightful position in contemporary art.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/ceramic-artists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"5 Ceramic Artists Fuelling Our Obsession With Clay 5 Ceramic Artists Fuelling Our Obsession With Clay\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We meet the 21st century clay-makers giving new life to the medium \u2014 and affirming it's rightful position in contemporary art.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/ceramic-artists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-05-30T08:37:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-05-02T12:00:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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