Nathan Prouty, Amelia (Canyoner), 2015, ceramic, underglaze, glitter, resin, foam. 2 x 5 1/2 x 7 3/4 in. Courtesy of the srtist
Zimra Beiner, Dark and Still, 2014, ceramic. 3 x 2 x 5 ft. 4 in. Courtesy of the artist.
NATHAN PROUTY AND ZIMRA BEINER: FABRICATED FICTIONS
November 6 – December 19, 2015
Friday, November 6
Opening @ 5:30 – 8:00 PM
The Artists Talk with curator James Barker @ 7:00 PM in the Euclid Avenue Gallery
Fabricated Fictions is a two-person group show, featuring Toronto born artist Zimra Beiner, and Nate Prouty from Philadelphia. Both with formal backgrounds in ceramics, Beiner and Prouty are makers, bringing their thoughts into the third dimension through a high level of craft and material understanding, and working with themes of absurdity, humor, domesticity, and the human condition. These compelling pieces are comprised of mostly fired and glazed ceramic, and also incorporate found objects, wood, foam, resin and various mixed media. Fabricated Fictions is an exhibition intended to illuminate the process of seeing, thinking, and making. It is a glimpse into the way we fabricate and abstract our own personal realities.
Beiner’s large ceramic sculptures are expressive abstractions of everyday domestic objects. His work looks to the domestic objects that we live with and at times fail to notice or overlook. Through a series of making, abstracting, and re-contextualizing, Beiner positions these objects in precarious arrangements and compositions which call into question the immediate associations and categorizations we have with them. Formally appealing, and visually stunning Beiner’s work lures the viewer in, to walk the fine line of what is reality and what is fiction.
Prouty’s intimate sculptures are bright, obsessively detailed “bundles” referencing humor, absurdity, and the human condition. While Beiner is looking to the domestic periphery, Prouty is attuned to the visual barrage of consumer culture, pop imagery, and cultural baggage. The pieces themselves are small compositions fit for a fireplace mantel, or curio-cabinet, both “nodding to both the knick-knack and the souvenir”. Prouty’s work is comically self-aware, yet one struggles to label it. These pieces are meticulously detailed, lusciously colored, and seductively finished. They are at once intentional and elusive, like a children’s toy from another planet.
about the artists
Nathan Prouty received his BFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and received his MFA from Ohio University in 2014. He has worked in various capacities at galleries both in Boston and Philadelphia, as a miniature model-maker for film, and most recently as a teacher of drawing, ceramics, and sculpture in continuing adult and higher education. Prouty works in ceramics and mixed media, using glitter, glaze, resin, and anything else that fits the bill. He is co-founder of Bandipur Studios and is currently working on its debut line of ceramic housewares.
Originally from Toronto, Canada, Zimra Beiner completed his undergraduate studies at Sheridan College and at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He is a graduate of Alfred University’s MFA program, 2012, and was an instructor at Bowling Green State University for two years before his current position teaching ceramics at Millersville University in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Part of an emerging younger, new wave in ceramics and sculpture, Beiner’s art conjures up domestic theater, both the banality and drama of everyday.
about the curator
James Barker served as Interim Curatorial Assistant at The Sculpture Center in 2015 and is an early career sculptor focused on ceramics. He guest curated Future Retrieval x Chris Voorhees (Sept. 17 – Oct. 23, 2015), and Nathan Prouty and Zimra Beiner: Fabricated Fictions (Nov. 6 – Dec. 19, 2015). Barker received his BFA from Ohio University in 2012 and is currently a 2016 MFA candidate at The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in Alfred, New York. See his work at his website.
