Joan Lurie at Chashama 300 W30 St, NYC
Artist Statement
My interest is in exploring ways of building structural forms in ceramics. Many ideas for the forms come from architecture while the inherent organic quality of the clay always brings the work back to soft forms more reminiscent of biological and natural things. My work mixes the hidden worlds of microscopic views with a fascination for cellular structures in modernist architecture. These influences reappear in my work as ever-changing associations to man-made and natural objects. It is in the back and forth between the natural and artificial or the repetitive systems of the built world and the randomness and complexity of organic systems, that my work finds its meaning.
My work is made from porcelain and porcelain paper-clay. I begin by combining thrown forms into a basic shape and then adding bands of clay to the exterior creating an armature in reverse on the outside of the form. I then cut away some of the underlying form and begin adding to the bands with paper-clay. During this process, a logic appears allowing the pieces to find their own structure.
