The Frank Lloyd Gallery is pleased to announce a one-person show by ceramic artist Tony Marsh. All of the works have a relationship to the vessel. New work will include a series titled Perforated Vessel Still Life Series, in which the artist explores the interaction of light on vertical forms that seem to hover. The airiness and shimmering qualities of these works are achieved by perforating all elements of the still life.
Tony Marsh will also exhibit a series of vessel-based forms filled with objects, incorporating a rich variety of tones and surface treatments. "In his Radiance and Abundance Series," as noted art writer George Melrod has written, "the vessels and their contents seem more weathered, but at the same time, more festive." Exploring both roughened, tactile surfaces and enticingly smooth, uniform surfaces, Marsh expands his range of colors to include lush reds and blues among earth tones. The forms that fill each vessel echo geometric structures found throughout nature, both at the microscopic and macroscopic levels. These shapes, familiar but mysterious in their re-contextualized state, deepen Marsh's exploration of the traditional vessel form.
The artist has stated:
"Vessels are entirely abstract and very profound things to me. Vessels serve, they preserve, they beautify, they commemorate, offer protect, ritualize…I think that's engaged on some level in my work. It's my way of paying homage."
Marsh, who was born in New York in 1954, has worked in Southern California for the past eighteen years. After receiving his B.F.A. from California State University Long Beach, he apprenticed in Japan for three years before returning to the United States to get his M.F.A from Alfred University in 1988. He is now the head of the ceramics department at California State University, Long Beach. Museum collections include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, in Sedalia, Missouri.