EUTOPIA

Matt Nolen

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Matt Nolen
Rough Trade
The Bowman~Penelec~Megahan Art Galleries
Allegheny College, Meadville, PA [link]

Matt Nolen pieces together vintage, found ceramic objects to re-member disparate experiences. The works tell a story of self-understanding by combining geometric shapes, eyes, faces, body parts, goblets, and collectible figurines. These amalgamations, while at first appearing to be cacophonous, are in fact a violent harmony of joinery which create an external visualization of the architecture of Nolen’s psyche. His vulnerable assemblages point out the ways in which we construct personal truths, and reveal tensions between internal and external representations of self. They are quixotic metaphors for the fragile notion of an immutable reality.

~Ian F. Thomas
images courtesy of the artist

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PLURAL: Beth Cavener

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PLURAL: two authors review one work.
Linda Ganstrom and Ryder Richards.

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Beth Cavener
Tangled Up in You [2014]
ceramic, acrylic
Tattoos designed and painted by Alessandro Gallo

Tangled Up in You by Beth Cavener hangs suspended, gently swaying. Gripping a thick rope, the snake strives to consume a large captive hare depicting a conflict with no resolution, a psychological state powered by tremendous emotion. Elegant tattoo patterns illustrate this story of conflict, striving and beauty on the skin of the snake in subtle blue on blue, adding to the watery aesthetic. Requiring the intent viewer to follow the muscular movement of the snake around the tortured hare to read the tattoo, the careful observer is rewarded with secret insight as they decipher the poetic symbolism.

~ Linda Ganstrom

The huddled hare, compressed and dangling within the constrictive musculature of a serpent, appears placidly composed, resigned to fate. As if stunned by the shear beauty of the tableau it inhabits the hare’s concession seems poignant, a willing partner seductively bound into complacency by a highly narrative, writhing design. A superficial ploy, the graphic storyline applied with dexterity introduces an intoxicating lure to which we fall prey. Referencing Aesop’s hare, Chinese ceramics, and Japanese tattoos the piece presents confused moral metaphors of entwined cultures, and a common conundrum: high craft as trap, from which there is no desire to escape.

~ Ryder Richards

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Elenor Wilson

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Elenor Wilson
American Tourister Still Life
ceramic
Milwaukee Art Museum, 2014

Formed of fragile white porcelain, American Tourister Still Life by Elenor Wilson displays how luggage becomes furniture to a traveler. Speaking to the fleeting nature of style, the feet of the “furniture” and the lady’s high-heeled shoes, discarded nearby, underscore the transient nature of fashion. Trends flow through time and reappear, re-imagined.  The feet of the furniture belong to the Victorian era, the heels and Coke bottle connect to mid-century and the luggage to the 1970’s in this object created in 2009. We form materials, but the materials we surround ourselves with have the ability to form us.

~ Linda Ganstrom

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Matt Ziemke

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Matt Ziemke
Adrift
2014
ceramic, mied media

“Didactic Ambiguity”

Matt Ziemke’s recent exhibition Adrift, speaks to familiarity’s ambiguous nature through relational investigations of form. A collection of disparate objects allude to the viewer that there is a meta-narrative within the relational proximities. This ambiguity supports the work by leaving the viewer enough space to derive their own ideological understanding, while simultaneously offering an investigation contingent on an experiential similitude. Without the viewer’s memories the content of this work would render itself formal. The relational display of the objects invites us to interpret that we might have an active role within this handmade-industrial narrative.

~Ian F. Thomas