Joan Lurie

My ceramic works explore visual relationships between the human body, architecture, microscopic images, natural forms, science, and technology, while at the same time reducing these categories of imaging into a ceramic form. I work with porcelain and porcelain paper clay. My sculptures are constructed by combining wheel-thrown forms into a shape, then adding coils of clay to the exterior, creating an armature in reverse on the outside of the form. Part of the underlying wheel-thrown form is cut away, while I continue to build out the hand built structure. My work grew out of a photographic project where I assembled images from architecture, design and craft books. I became fascinated by the ceramic forms found in the craft books and their relationship to the human body. Often, the images were simply traces or imprints of the human hand. This correspondence was so fascinating to me that I began to work with clay. This relationship between the human body and clay has been central to the making of my work and the process of creating my sculptures. Over the past 15 years, my work has focused on building structural forms in clay. Many ideas for my forms come from architecture while the inherent organic quality of the clay and my process always brings the work back to soft forms more reminiscent of biological and natural things. After firing and glazing, the trace of Lurie’s hand is forever embedded in the work, an expression of the relationship between maker and, in her own words, the “pleasure of working with the material to discover what it can do.” Untitled (2015) is just one of Lurie’s countless explorations into porcelain and a strong example of an artist working in conjunction with the inherent material possibilities of her chosen medium. - Rebecca Pristoop
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