Photos and text by Robert Kokenyesi, Ceramic Artist, Beachfront Pottery, Godfrey, IL 62035, USA.
Between January 10 and February 25, 2017, the all media exhibit “Constructed Visions, II” was on public view in the gallery of the St Louis Artists’ Guild in Clayton, Missouri. There were many wonderful pieces, but here I will be reporting on the ceramic pieces.
The venue showed its capacity to house artworks the best I have ever seen. Perhaps, because this was an exhibit of mostly 3D works, and the pieces were not confined tot he walls, but greeted you, confronted you every step of the way.
These two photos show the best overall view of the exhibit.
Beachfront Pottery pieces in this exhibit
I will start by talking about my two pieces, Deep Sea Scrolls, II, and Feeding Frenzy II. that were accepted into this national art exhibit.
The Feeding Frenzy series was inspired by the simultaneous activities during a shark attack. On one hand there is a super excited shark attacking its prey. On the other hand there is a well organized and choreographed circling of the prey by the other sharks in the attack group. I was presenting those two combined actions through a fused assembly of individual sharks and their field of action. The seven curved, drop-shaped forms represent the action field of the shark (great white shark glazed on each form). The seven action fields are positioned in spiraling assembly to indicate the organized part of the feeding frenzy.
The Deep Sea Scrolls series was inspired by the tremendous amount of knowledge that resides in the oceans, but all that knowledge is locked up, unavailable to us, because we’re yet to discover it. If you detected a similarity to the Dead Sea Scrolls, you’re on the right track. The Dead Sea Scrolls were holding their information for hundreds of years until the accidental discovery in 1947. We’re all waiting for a game=changer discovery in the oceans. The piece is made up of dozens of ceramic balls (Aztec symbol for water), that partially cover two scrolls. The ceramic balls are confined by a series of triangularly-placed ceramic ropes.
Other ceramic pieces in this exhibit
Here I have to confess that the cloud ate all my close up images of ceramic pieces from other artists. I do have pictures from some distance, so I will have to rely on those.
This huge art piece is the final shape of an evolving set of structures. This one has several hundreds of black ceramic vases on top of a 20 feet long platform. Each vase is different in shape, but identically glazed.
In the lower left corner of this image are two clay vessels. Both are the works of Craig Hoffman. He states on his web site that his works are influenced by Southwest Native American techniques. His pieces were formed by the coiling technique, and then the piece is paddled, burnished, and treated with chemicals to create a unique surface.
In this exhibit there was a ceramic piece from Rachel Santel “Gaia MotherEarth Goddess”. Also, Debra Smith had a stoneware piece titled “Standing Rock 2016. Suzanne Sidebottom had three pieces in this exhibit; Suzanne showed her trademark of creating very realistic looking items like baseball card, garden tools, matchboxes from porcelain.