FRESH FIGURINES:
A New Look at an Historic Art Form

 

 

The ceramic figurine appears throughout art history internationally. It has survived time and excavation. Its presence enhances our picture of each civilization. It can be viewed as a visual document of the pop culture of its time. Historically, it may reflect manners, mores, styles and social custom. In European society from the 18th century, figurines became a commercial must-have, intent on being charming, alluding to desired lifestyle, offered as a mass produced accessory from many prestigious ceramic factories and marketed as a collectable to adorn the mantle in well appointed domestic settings. Later, it became the scale of choice for compelling, one-of-a-kind, dynamic figurative works. It continues to have appeal for artists with something big to say in chosen modest scale.

The magnetic and the memorable in small formats can hold a fascinating, disproportionate power. FRESH FIGURINES explores some of the ideas and arresting forms which contemporary, one-of-a-kind ceramic figurines take and hold. These works resonate within this perspective: be they boldly confrontational, subtly coy, questioning, provocative and/or purely playful. They are, often unanticipated, material evidence of focused subjects expressed in quite diminutive physical size—moods and mores, personal and universal issues, historic or current political and social matters—presented as individual or grouped figures and/or in settings and vignettes.

Fuller Craft Museum
Brockton, MA
October 8, 2011 - February 5, 2012

Read excerpts from Gail Brown's Curator's Talk.

See a slideshow of selected images.

Reviews
Cate McQuaid's review in the Boston Globe
Richard Friswell's review in Artes Magazine

Opening Reception
Sunday, October 9, 2:00-5:00 p.m.
Curator's Talk 1:00 p.m.

Artists

Works which reference historic figurines Chris Antemann Andrea Keys Connell Susan Schultz Heather Nameth Bren Future Retrieval—Katie Parker & Guy Davis Works with references to history and art history Ronna Neuenschwander Rough & Perfect—Rebecca Harvey & Steve Thursten Richard Cleaver David Furman Mara Superior Works about aesthetics, values and questions Amy Santoferraro Nathan Prouty Ryan Takaba Elissa Armstrong Linda Cordell Issues about contemporary life and pop culture—from the weighty to the witty Pavel Amromin Arnie Zimmerman Bill Stewart Sunkoo Yuh Corie Cole Hirotsune Tashima Hide Sadohara Personal fairy tales and dreams Christina Bothwell Megan Bogonovich Debra Fritts Tom Bartel Lisa Clague Family and community Russell Biles Beth Lo Janis Mars Wunderlich Jack Earl Addressing vernacular icons Jack Thompson Cynthia Consentino Thaddeus Erdahl Jeremy Brooks And contemplating the inner self Jessica Stoller Anne Drew Potter Debbie Kupinsky Lisa Marie Barber Paul McMullan

Go back to Gail Brown's Home page.