The Frank Lloyd Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work in porcelain by Cheryl Ann Thomas. Including examples of both Relics and Vessels, this show demonstrates the artist's persistent stylistic development. Each stage of her evolution has been natural, with nothing forced or contrived in her transitions.
Thomas continues to form her work by coiling and pinching together impossibly thin strands of clay into vertical vessel forms. Rather than smoothing the ridges and furrows that characterize this process, she leaves the textured surface as a permanent record of her engagement with the material. When exposed to the heat of the kiln, the vessels soften or collapse unpredictably. It is by combining several collapsed vessels that she creates her larger sculptures, elegant and graceful compositions that are "exquisite and very delicate, richly open-ended in their associations," according to Constance Mallinson for Art in America.
Thomas has recently introduced soft, subtle colors into her previously black and white body of work. These new pieces are constructed of gentle shades of blue, brown, gray, cream, and white. The light hues lend a soft-focus quality to her work and make their delicacy, already a defining characteristic, even more pronounced.
On the subject of her new work, Thomas comments that "the art and my nature are slowly coming into an even closer alignment. It is going soft."
Cheryl Ann Thomas graduated from the Art Center College of Design in 1982, and has emerged as a ceramic sculptor within the past 13 years. She has been featured in solo and group shows in New York and Los Angeles and her work is included in the collections of the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. This is her fourth solo exhibition with the Frank Lloyd Gallery.
Please click here to view the digital catalogue for the exhibition on an iPad: