The Alfred Ceramic Art Museum will host two exhibitions beginning Sept. 10: “Resilience,” featuring work by Canadian artist Paula Murray, and “Figure Out: Catastrophe or Regeneration,” an exhibit of work by the Italian artist Paolo Porelli.
Both exhibits will run concurrently through Dec. 20. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7pm Thursday, Sept. 10.
Murray’s graceful sculpture has been described as “unapologetically beautiful and unafraid to take on some of the most difficult and university issues of human experience: Breaking and healing, transformation, the search for truth of different kinds, and finding pathways toward reconciliation.”
Porelli’s exhibit meanwhile will showcase statuettes of wildly diverse and idiosyncratic characters sparked by strange intuition and his fervent imagination. Some have faces entirely obscured by sausages or mops or flowers. Some appear to wear unorthodox scuba gear or magic hats. Some carry thunderbolts or mirrors or mysterious orbs.
Born in Ottawa, Murry studied science at the University of Ottawa and ceramics at Sheridan College She lives along Meech Lake, in Quebec, and has sailed between Canada and South America with her family, developing a close relationship with the graceful movements of water.
Porelli graduated from the Academia di Bella Arti di Roma with a degree in painting, then gravitated toward ceramics and began experimenting with the figures for which he has become well known. A resident of Rome, he and his partner, the art historian Lori Ann Touchette, founded the international residency program CRETA in Rome with the aim of serving as a “point of encounter for international exchange between artists, collectors, donors and the public.
Both artists are members of the International Academy of Ceramics.
For more information on the artists, the exhibits, and the Alfred Ceramic Arts Museum visit https://ceramicsmuseum.alfred.edu/exhibitions/resilience/index.html and https://ceramicsmuseum.alfred.edu/exhibitions/figure-out/index.html.
