Ceramics Now

The Jane Hartsook Gallery is pleased to present work by our 2022 fellows and artists in residence: Beth Campbell, Cathy Lu, Alva Mooses, and Shellyne Rodriguez. Our Residency and Fellowship program fosters artistic growth by providing makers with a creative community, time, space and materials to explore and generate new bodies of work in ceramics in vibrant New York City.

Beth Campbell is a New York-based artist who creates drawings, sculptures, and architectural interventions that challenge our perception of the world by reworking everyday objects in surprising or startling ways. She employs mass-produced consumer items, often in repetition, to make apparent the way we use these items to construct our identities. During her residency, Campbell experimented with doing “burn outs” where she coated natural materials in clay and then fired them so the organic material burns away but leaves its form and texture behind in ceramic.

Cathy Lu is a California-based artist who explores experiences of immigration and cultural hybridity from an Asian American point of view. Lu creates sculptures and installations that often draw from traditional Chinese imagery and objects to problematize what it means to be both Asian and American without being fully accepted by either culture. During her fellowship, Lu worked on a project called American Dream Pillows, inspired by a tradition in ancient China that believed that resting on specific pillows could influence both your dreams and your future. She created ceramic pillows that meditated on Asian American experiences, specifically the tension between the American dream and the lived experience.

Alva Mooses is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist and educator. Mooses uses geological materials such as rammed earth, cast concrete and volcanic stones along with cultural symbols and personal experiences to critique the impact colonialism has had on our social and physical environments. During her residency, Mooses continued a body of work that combines empty globe stands with rammed earth pedestals. The missing globes symbolize the loss of specific histories and potential futures, which is a legacy of colonialism. Mooses will further this project at GHP by using the studio’s extruders and glaze lab to experiment more with the forms and finishes of her sculptures.

Shellyne Rodriguez is a Bronx-based artist, educator, writer, and community organizer who works in a variety of media, including drawing, painting, collage, and sculpture. Rodriguez pairs the aesthetics of the Baroque and of hip-hop culture to depict the contemporary conditions of alienation and perseverance, especially as it relates to her community in the South Bronx. During her residency, Rodriguez created a series of ceramic reliefs that focused on the disappearing and increasingly dispossessed people and places of her community in the South Bronx.