AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — The following is a photo essay from Italy-based artist Daniel Cavey of his 2016 exhibition Feather as Light at Cloud Gallery (Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 15 – December 12, 2016). From the Artist:
Above image: Daniel Cavey, Anthropogenic nesting solutions 4, 2016, wood-fire stoneware, 91 x 24 cm
In his work, Cavey focuses on the consequences of human action upon the current biosphere. Through the study and evaluation of other species and their functions as populations within specific ecological niches, Cavey makes analogies between animals and humans in order to identify and present the impact of our ever-expanding global population.
The evolutionary history and natural adaptations of particular species heavily influences the artist’s choice of imagery. And his often-acrimonious expressions underline the effects of a continuously widening gap between humanity and the natural world, where the former’s foundations lie. Balancing these elements and executing his expressions with technical acumen, Cavey explores irony, tension, and despair, eliciting emotions and provoking serious thought about imperative issues. Such responses may be uncomfortable but are also necessary components of change in the individual and social consciousness. Thought and emotion establish ethical guidelines for action, which the artist feels it is our responsibility, as the dominant species on earth, to self-impose.
Daniel Cavey, Sus scrofa majori (framed), wood-fired stoneware, 81 x 40 x 31 cm. Click for larger image.
Daniel Cavey, Sus scrofa majori (tondo), 2016, terracotta, 80 x 43 cm. Click for larger image.
Daniel Cavey, Marmota monax, 2016, wood-fired stoneware, 76 x 58 x 36 cm. Click for larger image.
Daniel Cavey, Marmota monax, 2016, wood-fired stoneware, 76 x 58 x 36 cm. Click for larger image.
Daniel Cavey, Remnants (Turdus merula), 2016, stoneware, stainless steel, 125 x 24 x 130 cm. Click for larger image.
Daniel Cavey, Athene noctua, 2016, terracotta, gas discharge tube, 190 x 116 x 33 cm. Click for larger image.
About the Artist:
Daniel Cavey was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1977 and grew up on a small farm in an outlying county. Cavey received a BFA in ceramics from Maryland Institute college of Art in 1999. That fall, Cavey accepted a formal invitation to a ceramic symposium in Riga, Latvia, which he attended for two consecutive years. In 2002, Cavey applied for an artist residency at La Meridiana and moved to Italy. There, Cavey began working with terracotta on a large scale at the Antica Fornace Montecchio, a manufacturer of garden ceramics. He began working with a landscape architect and his architectural ceramics and sculpture can be found in a number of both public and private gardens throughout Tuscany.
Cavey currently works out of his studio near Avellino in southern Italy. He attends symposia throughout Europe, including the European Artists symposium held in Essen, Germany, and continues to teach and work in the United States. His work was featured in Marie Claire Maison and Ceramics Monthly. Cavey has exhibited in the Museum of Foreign Art in Riga, Latvia, in the Keramikmuseum Westerwald of Hohr-Grenzhausen, in the Museu de Ceramica de L’Alcora, Spain, and elsewhere.
Text (edited) and images courtesy of Daniel Cavey.
Do you love or loathe these works of contemporary ceramics and contemporary ceramic art? Let us know in the comments.
Great to see contemporary ceramics out there challenging mainstream commercial artistic assumptions.
Good that this work was in collections .
I would like to see other artists doing
Ceramics but thinking out of the box.