Pattern and Form
How can surface further describe or be form? I am looking to build a visual vocabulary based on properties natural to ceramic glazes rather than paint. This exhibit includes works in two areas: one in which the graphic attention surrounds the form and the other when painting exists within the form.
Assembled slip-cast porcelain fruit sculptures are covered in pattern. They are easily recognizable as apple, lemon, mango etc. Although identifying shape is maintained, surface and position are changed. Clusters of fruit are draped by patterns that call the eye to move in and out of the surface plane. The patterns exist as the visual trail left by repetitive marks of the hand with brush. Initial pieces in this series were intended as small stages for sliced fresh fruit. The real was juxtaposed with its abstraction. In subsequent pieces I did not want to be constrained by the horizontal surfaces necessary for holding fresh food. They became arrangements of convex and flat fruit shapes with continued exploration of composition and surface. Color (underglaze & china paint) was soon added. Some of the recent pieces are made in two or three sections. Stoppered parts slide onto the main body. I have long been fond of change and movement of finished objects. Early sulptures in the l970.
The second emphasis of this exhibition is found in the wheel thrown black porcelain bowls. What can painting on the interior of a concave form be? Here, the white interior fields a painting composed of floating fragments of line and pattern. It is wrapped by an expanding skin of dense black. Movement is implied through compositon and illusions of depth. Negative space appears as foreground or a receeding white pool. In discussing painting we talk aboout how the 2-d surface is acknowledged by the painter. When making a bowl I am very aware of this dialogue and work to keep the pull between the surface being a place where the eye stops or continues, unknowing of where the hard boundary is. There is no up or down but an asssumption that the composition will be redistributed as the bowl is turned. These pieces are more contemplative, and intospective. Yet I would also like to achieve a sense of animation and narration using abstract elements.
My interest is in painterly surfaces, form, and narrative content. I am looking to make poetic statements with compositions of abstract and representational visual elements.
Pattern and Form, an exhibition of recent ceramic work by Karen Thuesen Massaro will be on view at The University of California Santa Cruz Porter Faculty Gallery from April 12th through May 7. Gallery hours are Thursday - Sunday, 1pm - 5 pm.
Karen Thuesen Massaro is a Santa Cruz based artist who has been exhibiting her ceramic work nation wide since l970. She received her M.F.A. degree in l972 from the Univeristy of Wisconsin, Madison. She has taught at several universities as a visiting professor and artist, including Ohio State University, And Scripps College. She has been honored with a NEA Arts Fellowship Grant and her work is included in many public and private collections including the National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution.
