Justin Donofrio

Through a ceramic lens, I’m exploring the concept of civilization’s authority over landscape and record of construction as a form of time materialized. The geographical layered strata represent fragments or glimpses into the density of every assemblage. I watch as the intersections and overlaps contemplate the dynamic relationship between materiality and landscape and our attempt to utilize it. Each vessel is made using clay that is colored to reference vibrant natural tones found in the wilderness. In the work I’ve been exploring the contrasting qualities and connotations of local small batch clay versus industrially mined materials for ceramic industry. 
 
Within this I’m looking for the compositions to explore volume and implied volume to construct a kinesthetic visual experience. Just suppose the sharp and soft, wet and dry, clay and ceramic speak to these notions of manicured space in an attempt to cultivate order. Interiors become exteriors, and exteriors are revealed. Minimal manipulation of the materials and the inherent qualities categorized and processed. I’m searching for different algorithms of parts, tones, and colors as visual triggers in relationship to one another. The system is constantly in process of development, although certain features become relatively fixed. This becomes the structure.  
 
The many states of clay intrigue me. There is an attempt at liberation and cohesion of clay and hand, tethering to a material reality that feels increasingly endangered. I’m interested in the raw tonal qualities of clay, and how firing or not firing, glaze versus raw clay is perceived in the objects. There is a visual and physical weight of the different states of clay, raw to high fired and everywhere in between and I pay attention and use all with awareness. These concepts are all connected through a form of ideological material inquisition and pursuit of ephemerality within the fading life of wet clay. This concept is harkening back to that physical response to the continuum between clay and maker ceramic or rock and climber. 

Bio
Justin Donofrio grew up in Santa Cruz, CA where he was introduced to clay at Cabrillo Community College. He then joined the vibrant Colorado community of artist in 2013 in the Roaring Fork Valley where he continued his clay education with the support of Anderson Ranch, The Carbondale Clay Center and The Studio for Arts and Works (SAW). He remained in Colorado to complete a B.F.A. from CSU Fort Collins in 2016 and received an MFA from NYSCC at Alfred University in 2021. He is both internationally as well as nationally represented in galleries throughout the U.S. and abroad. Donofrio has been a Windgate Summer Scholar at the Archie Bray Foundation and resident at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. He has been an exhibiting artist and tour co-manager with the Artstream Nomadic Gallery, in addition to being selected as one of Ceramics Monthly’s 2018 Emerging Artists. Donofrio was a participant in The Walter Gropius Master Artist Symposium at the Huntington Museum of Art in Fall of 2020.