Jay Kvapil: Lip, Body, and Foot
February 15 – March 12, 2022
Opening reception for the artist: Thursday, February 17th, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Diane Rosenstein Gallery is pleased to announce an installation of recent ceramics by Jay Kvapil. These exuberant ceramic vessels were made during the pandemic and is the culmination of Kvapil’s thirty-five-year studio ceramics practice at California State University Long Beach. This is his second solo show with the gallery.
The artist writes, “This body of work represents a natural progression over the last decade — reflections on elegant classical ceramic vessel forms, glazed with goopy, pitted, and extreme surfaces fired multiple times to achieve maximum effect. Here, I have stuck to this tense conversation between the forms and their surfaces, but have pushed the surfaces almost to the edge, testing the limits of what constitutes good taste. Like in earlier work, the form presents as a somewhat rigid skeleton¬ – with lip, body, and foot well-defined. With the new highly three-dimensional glazes I have introduced in this work, the colors are more intense and the color combinations more unexpected, resulting in the glaze becoming more than just a skin, becoming more like extreme clothes or costumes cloaking the body.”
Jay Kvapil (USA, b. 1951) is a potter and educator based in California. He received recent solo exhibitions at Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles; Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami; Galerie Lefebrve & Fils, in Paris; and Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles. His ceramics are currently on view in the permanent collection of the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA. Jay Kvapil graduated from University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA in 1973, and between 1974-75 studied tea ceremony ware at the Takatori Seizan Pottery in the island of Kyushu in Southern Japan. After returning to the United States, he obtained his MA (1979) and MFA (1981) from San Jose State University, in California. He taught at the University of Hawaii (1984), then moved to California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) in 1986, where for thirty-five years he was in residence with a studio practice and served a variety of roles, including Professor of Art (Ceramics) and Director of the School of Art. His work has been included in group exhibitions at The Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (1980) and Oakland Museum of California (OMCA). The artist lives and works in Long Beach and Sonoma.
