Date: Sep 8, 2023
Deadline: Dec 9, 2023 - 5:00 pm
The ceramic vessel is an ancient form, and one that has taught us a lot about ourselves due to the archaeological record it provides.
The timelessness of the vessel is also echoed in the method of its making on a wheel. For millennia, potters have been throwing vessels, fingers expertly reaching down into the circling damp earth to give rise to form.
But what, exactly, is contained within the space enclosed by that clay as it infinitely spirals upward? What could become visible when gazing into that void?
What such a vessel contains is a core fascination of artist, Benjamin Oswald. An accomplished local ceramicist, Oswald makes use of his background in the sciences to approach these questions of form and absence through a framework of ‘thinking tools.’
The body of minimal vessels in this exhibition demonstrates the artist’s rigorous approach to engaging ideas of form and formlessness, presence and absence through clay. With this meticulous engagement with his materials, Oswald’s ceramic works hold us in a sublime encounter with unanswerable questions of our existence.