Print
E-mail
Comment
McKerley, Story showcase new work at 18 Hands Gallery
  
|
By Virginia Billeaud Anderson
Post-minimalist artist Eva Hesse’s belief that decorative art was the “only art sin” may have had less to do with disdain for decorative expression than with a post-modern compulsion to articulate.
In hand molding sticky, stringy, slightly unpleasant materials into floppy forms suggesting female body parts, Hesse was psychically venting. If it wasn’t for her sense of humor, we might be tempted to interpret her uncomfortably perverse sculptural works as an assertion of life’s absurdity. Her death at a very young age was cosmically absurd.
Though he works in series and multiples in the manner of Hesse (Warhol, etc), Gregory Story’s art filters a very different mood. Story creates “WallBalls,” colorful wall hung ceramic spheres that gussy up a room and visually goose the viewer. “WallBalls” are decorative and made solely to please the eye. They make the viewer easy breezy happy. So you might want to travel to 19th Street in the Heights to see Story’s balls on exhibit at 18 Hands Gallery through Oct. 31.
According to Story the balls “just happened.”
“I wanted to create something completely different for my collectors to put on their walls,” the Fort Worth-based artist said. “I wanted it to be unexpected, vibrant and joyful. I wanted it to be playful yet sophisticated, modern yet timeless.”
Their spherical shape is weirdly timeless in a Euclidian way, positing galaxies and things celestial. They hint at universal notions in the elevated manner of classical motifs. Some balls are outrageously colored – pop art blue with juiced up orange, lime green, others are covered with earth tones such as raw umber and goldish-yellow. This aesthetic is ultra contemporary with a metaphysical aura and vaguely cognizant of post-modern serialization. (“Serial art repeats the absurdity,” said Hesse.)
Story’s pottery process is cool. He first casts liquid clay into a sphere. Then he carves designs onto the ball with a tool, dries the ball and sponge smoothes it. The clay is then kiln fired. Once hard, he brush paints color glazes on to the ball and kiln fires some more.
The balls vary in size and can be arranged to desire, symmetrically or irregularly. They hang on wall mountings that make them flush with the wall. And do bizarre things with shadows. Try to imagine constellation-type wall relief playing off the room’s “fine art” and other lofty objects.
“It is my hope,” said Story, “that this work makes you smile.”
The other act at 18 Hands is Ryan McKerley, an Austin-based artist whose elegant clay vessels present a functional contrast to Story’s decorative teasing. McKerley similarly explores surface design and texture.
The surfaces of McKerley’s cups, bowls and vases are characterized by floating circular and diagonal relief patterns. To shape and carve these designs he uses a method called “wax and water carving” in which wax patterns are painted on the dry unfired vessel, which is then scrubbed with a wet sponge. Wax-resist comes into play where surface glazes are applied. Glazes that are covered with wax are chemically altered by kiln heat in a manner different from those not waxed, making for pregnant variations in color and texture.
An additional firing element adds sassy charm to McKerley’s pieces. He interjects soda into the kiln. This is sodium bicarbonate, the old timey Arm and Hammer stuff, mixed with water. When soda meets flames it creates an extra glaze that drips across vessel surfaces. It also collides with the other glazes further erupting into interesting patterns. One can see buoyant color shifts from creamy pale green to umber, cadmium and gold in platter and bowl surfaces.
“I don't want my pots to be all the same color,” he said. “The hues are actually formed in the firing process.”
In the exhibition “Surfaces: New Work by Ryan McKerley and Gregory Story,” one gets a sense of the vitality, earthy rawness and beauty of the millennia long pottery producing tradition.
“Surfaces: New Work by Ryan McKerley and Gregory Story”
This exhibit on is display at 18 Hands Gallery, 249 W. 19th Street, Suite B in Houston through Oct. 31. Visit www.18handsgallery.com for more information.
In hand molding sticky, stringy, slightly unpleasant materials into floppy forms suggesting female body parts, Hesse was psychically venting. If it wasn’t for her sense of humor, we might be tempted to interpret her uncomfortably perverse sculptural works as an assertion of life’s absurdity. Her death at a very young age was cosmically absurd.
Though he works in series and multiples in the manner of Hesse (Warhol, etc), Gregory Story’s art filters a very different mood. Story creates “WallBalls,” colorful wall hung ceramic spheres that gussy up a room and visually goose the viewer. “WallBalls” are decorative and made solely to please the eye. They make the viewer easy breezy happy. So you might want to travel to 19th Street in the Heights to see Story’s balls on exhibit at 18 Hands Gallery through Oct. 31.
According to Story the balls “just happened.”
“I wanted to create something completely different for my collectors to put on their walls,” the Fort Worth-based artist said. “I wanted it to be unexpected, vibrant and joyful. I wanted it to be playful yet sophisticated, modern yet timeless.”
Their spherical shape is weirdly timeless in a Euclidian way, positing galaxies and things celestial. They hint at universal notions in the elevated manner of classical motifs. Some balls are outrageously colored – pop art blue with juiced up orange, lime green, others are covered with earth tones such as raw umber and goldish-yellow. This aesthetic is ultra contemporary with a metaphysical aura and vaguely cognizant of post-modern serialization. (“Serial art repeats the absurdity,” said Hesse.)
Story’s pottery process is cool. He first casts liquid clay into a sphere. Then he carves designs onto the ball with a tool, dries the ball and sponge smoothes it. The clay is then kiln fired. Once hard, he brush paints color glazes on to the ball and kiln fires some more.
The balls vary in size and can be arranged to desire, symmetrically or irregularly. They hang on wall mountings that make them flush with the wall. And do bizarre things with shadows. Try to imagine constellation-type wall relief playing off the room’s “fine art” and other lofty objects.
“It is my hope,” said Story, “that this work makes you smile.”
The other act at 18 Hands is Ryan McKerley, an Austin-based artist whose elegant clay vessels present a functional contrast to Story’s decorative teasing. McKerley similarly explores surface design and texture.
The surfaces of McKerley’s cups, bowls and vases are characterized by floating circular and diagonal relief patterns. To shape and carve these designs he uses a method called “wax and water carving” in which wax patterns are painted on the dry unfired vessel, which is then scrubbed with a wet sponge. Wax-resist comes into play where surface glazes are applied. Glazes that are covered with wax are chemically altered by kiln heat in a manner different from those not waxed, making for pregnant variations in color and texture.
An additional firing element adds sassy charm to McKerley’s pieces. He interjects soda into the kiln. This is sodium bicarbonate, the old timey Arm and Hammer stuff, mixed with water. When soda meets flames it creates an extra glaze that drips across vessel surfaces. It also collides with the other glazes further erupting into interesting patterns. One can see buoyant color shifts from creamy pale green to umber, cadmium and gold in platter and bowl surfaces.
“I don't want my pots to be all the same color,” he said. “The hues are actually formed in the firing process.”
In the exhibition “Surfaces: New Work by Ryan McKerley and Gregory Story,” one gets a sense of the vitality, earthy rawness and beauty of the millennia long pottery producing tradition.
“Surfaces: New Work by Ryan McKerley and Gregory Story”
This exhibit on is display at 18 Hands Gallery, 249 W. 19th Street, Suite B in Houston through Oct. 31. Visit www.18handsgallery.com for more information.
Submit a Comment
|
You must be logged in to post a comment.
|
Not yet a registered member?
Click here to become one. Comments to stories and articles on the Web site are not edited or pre-approved before appearing online. Readers posting comments are solely responsible for those comments. Comments must be germane to the story to which they apply. Online comments that are libelous, profane or personally attack another site participant can be reported as abuse using the link provided on each comment. Comments reported as abusive will be reviewed and may be removed from view, as will off-topic comments. BE CIVIL. Individuals continually posting abusive comments to the site may have their registrations revoked. |
