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Cheryl Ann Thomas

Hap

November 21 - December 20, 2014

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Installation View

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Char, 2014

Porcelain

13 x 20 x 14 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Violet, 2014

Porcelain

19 x 21 x 18 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Hint, 2014

Porcelain

13 x 21 x 17 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Enfold, 2014

Porcelain

19 x 18 x 19 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Tinge, 2014

Porcelain

18 x 25 x 22 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Jut, 2014

Porcelain

24 x 24 x 25 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Blue Tower, 2014

Porcelain

36 x 21 x 23 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Threefold, 2014

Porcelain

22 ½ x 21 x 23 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Relics 243, 287-289, 292, 294 & 295, 2012

Porcelain

32 x 24 x 27 inches

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Six Relics 217, 218, 220, 222, 248, & 255, 2010

Porcelain

30 x 25 x 25 inches

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Array, 2013

Porcelain

22 x 55 x 20 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Relic Heap Black, 2009

Porcelain

23 x 32 x 34 inches 

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Cheryl Ann Thomas

Dyad, 2007-2012

Porcelain

25 ½ x 50 x 29 inches 

Installation View

Installation View

Danese/Corey is proud to present its first exhibition of the work of Cheryl Ann Thomas. Thomas refers to her porcelain sculptures as “relics or “artifacts,” alluding to the process by which they are created as well as to a sense of their being fragile remnants of time passed.

Meticulously layering thin, serpentine strands of clay, Thomas begins by creating tall columns (generally 4 to 5 feet high) that are intended to “fail” and collapse in the kiln, incorporating the concept of chance or happenstance into the work, as the title of the show suggests. The resultant “ruins” are then conjoined and fired once again, creating and recreating, by design and chance, a paradoxical syntax of temporal consumption and destruction, meticulous order and arbitrary chaos… In Thomas’s own words, “[the] work is an intimate and experiential inquiry into fragility and loss. I construct, I sabotage, I reconcile.” It is ritual in the guise of craft.(1)

The works are invested with an enigmatic and emotional presence that recalls the gesture of the body or the movement of cloth, while retaining evidence of the artist’s hand, apparent in the rhythmic, repetitive patterning of the coils. Allowing the visibility of the process is important to Thomas. In doing so, her work emphasizes the vulnerability of the unfired clay while revealing that this frail material acquires strength(2) in the firing process. Reflective of the long honored tradition of form over material, the rigid porcelain appears to be fluid folds of cascading cloth – recalling the virtuosity of pleated drapery rendered in marble, as in Greco-Roman sculpture.

Thomas chooses a muted palette for her work – pale creams, yellows, celadon greens and shades of gray to near black. She often interweaves into the coils an unexpected strand of electric blue or a contrasting strip of white, like the flash of a vein of treasured ore. These lines of color subtly lead the eye around the sculpture’s flowing contours.(3)

Cheryl Ann Thomas graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA in 1982. Her sculptures have appeared in solo and group shows in New York and Los Angeles. Her work is included in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Long Beach Museum of Art, and the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto, Canada. 

 

(1) Plochere, Michelle. “Origin Stories,” The Times Quotidian, January 23, 2011.

(2) Levin, Elaine. “Fragility and Loss,” Ceramics: Art and Perception, No. 85, 2011, p. 29.

(3) Ibid, p. 30.