Spotted | Jesse Small, David Hicks, Monika Grabuschnigg and Liz Magic Laser

Welcome back to Spotted, our weekly roundup of choice selections from the worlds of contemporary ceramics and contemporary ceramic art! This week we’re starting off with works by Jesse Small.

Small received a BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1997 and followed it up with an MFA from Alfred University in 2005. Small works out of Los Angeles. Jesse works on commission, making everything from ceramics to chandeliers and screens.

Above image: Jesse Small, Moon Shelf 2, 2013, powder coated steel and ceramic, 30 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 6 inches

David Hicks

Next up is David Hicks is also based out of California. From his biography:

Perceiving agricultural cycles as allegories for human struggle, David Hicks crafts ceramic compositions from individual gourd-like structures that reference the journey from fertilization to decay. Hicks’s hand-formed terracotta pieces are coated with a copper-infused luster that fuses to his glazes and results in a thin, undulating, metallic surface. He favors such finishes because they allow his sculptures’ forms and surface color to be the main focus rather than their place in history or chemistry. Hicks clusters his individual clay pieces to form compositions that are either suspended from the ceiling with natural fiber twine or supported by free-standing or wall-mounted metal armatures. While Hicks’s compositions function as whole objects, the complexity of each component parallels the compositions of still-life paintings, in which individual elements cohere to demonstrate the artist’s virtuosity.

 

Monika Grabuschnigg

Monika Grabuschnigg, according to her biography, was born 1987 in Austria. She received her Master in Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (A) and studied as an exchange student at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem (IL) and the Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago de Chile (CL).

Grabuschnigg’s works circle questions about the meaning, identity and cultural affiliation of objects, symbols and ornaments once they have experienced a shift or de-contextualization, particularly in the form of souvenirs and other consumer products. Working mostly in the medium of sculpture, her materials are clay and resins, which are processed in different mould and casting techniques, reassembling found and hand built shapes.

Liz Magic Laser

Liz Magic Laser is a New York City-based artist who practices both performance and ceramics.

Liz Magic Laser was born in 1981 in New York City, where she lives and works, according to her biography. Her performances and videos intervene in semi-public spaces such as bank vestibules, movie theaters and newsrooms, and have involved collaborations with actors, dancers, surgeons, and motorcycle gang members. She is a graduate of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and Columbia University’s MFA program. In 2013 Laser had solo exhibitions at DiverseWorks in Houston, Texas, and at the Westfälische Kunstverein, Münster, Germany, for which she received the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halback Foundation Grant. She was The Armory Show 2013 Commissioned Artist, New York City. Liz Magic Laser is her real name from birth.

Do you love or loathe these works of contemporary ceramic art? Let us know in the comments.