“The Fine Art of Ceramics” – now up at the Guadalupe Arts Center – is a straightforward title for a tight show. Five artists use a wide range of techniques to create intimate textures and sculptures out of clay, porcelain, and plaster. Each artist brings a unique vision and refined approach to his or her art. V. Chinn’s thin porcelain is thrown and carved before earthy glazes are added, with Chinn’s formidable painting skill evident in the fine brushwork on many of his pieces. Danville Chadbourne makes large stacking shapes in bright, playful colors, but with distressed textures. The Austin artists Rebecca Roberts and Alejandra Almuelle are featured alongside Massachusetts’ Thomas Hoadley, whose unglazed forms rely on pigmented porcelain finely sliced and reassembled into floppy shapes. The apparent looseness of the finished piece is in stark contrast to the delicate engineering required during creation. Almuelle’s mixed-media mannequins are haunting and beautiful – the posed figures’ hands so graceful. Looking at their work here, you can see why Hoadley and Almuelle were both selected to participate in this year’s San Angelo National Ceramic Competition on April 15-19 (see www.samfa.org).
“The Fine Art of Ceramics” runs through April 28 at the Guadalupe Arts Center, 1705 Guadalupe. For more information, call 473-3775 or visit www.guadalupearts.com.
This article appears in April 9 • 2004.