MAY 23, 2024 – JUNE 2, 2024
At the Gardiner Museum
Toronto, Ontario
Featuring work by:
Jacqueline Bishop
Peter Pincus
Linda Sikora
ABOUT THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL CERAMIC ART FAIR
& Symposium
The International Ceramic Art Fair (ICAF) is a 10-day celebration of some of the most compelling recent ceramic art, featuring works by emerging and established artists from a wide range of backgrounds, as well as online and in-person programming by artists and curators.
ICAF 2024 focuses on the theme of gathering to explore ways in which artworks, and clay as a medium, can bring us together to create common ground. Amid political, religious, ethnic, class, and cultural divides, gathering enables us to focus on how we are united in our humanity, highlighting shared experiences and needs. Gathering encourages listening, as we share space within the action of coming together. To gather is also to collect our resources, both internal and external, for healing and survival. We gather with emotional and spiritual intention, honouring our full capacities as beings to face the challenges and opportunities we encounter. ICAF 2024 highlights Canadian and international artists who engage clay as a medium for coming together to reassert our shared bonds with each other and the earth.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
& FEATURED WORK
Many artists are reconsidering how we define ourselves as a species and how these changing definitions can alter our relationships to each other, to other animals and life forms, and to the land we inhabit. The separation of the human and non-human is increasingly understood as porous or insignificant. Clay can be seen as a mediator between the human and non-human, blurring the boundaries with its life-giving properties, its capacity to record and hold human memory, its characteristic of absorption, and its capacity to connect us to the land.
How can we re-orient our relationship to the planet through a more nuanced understanding of our connection to other forms of life? How can emerging discourses of the human shift us toward new and generative understandings of our bodies place in the world?
Join us to view the works at ICAF and participate in the accompanying programs to explore these and other questions. Sponsored by the Raphael Yu Centre for Candaian Ceramics, Toward Future Bodies aims to foster a deeper appreciation for Canadian ceramics within a larger artistic ecosystem.
b. 1971, Kingston, Jamaica
lives and works in New York, NY
b. 1982 Rochester, NY,
lives and works in Penfield, NY
b. 1960, Saskatoon, Canada
lives and works in Alfred, NY
PROGRAMMING
PREVIEW GALA
Wednesday May 22, 7 – 10 pm
Be among the first to view and purchase exceptional ceramic works from leading galleries and artists at the International Ceramics Art Fair’s exclusive Preview Gala. Proceeds from this fundraising event support the Gardiner Museum’s Community Access Fund, making clay programs more widely available to communities with limited access to arts education.
Dress: Cocktail attire
If you require any accommodations to ensure your participation, please inform us in advance.
*Charitable tax receipt issued post-event for the maximum allowable amount.
Single ticket: $250
Package of 10: $2,000
Young Patron Circle: $200
By Phone: 416.408.5051
LESLIE FERRIN: MEET ME AT International Ceramic Art Fair at the Gardiner Museum, Toronto
Thursday May 23rd | 1:30-2:30pm
Gardiner Museum
111 Queens Park Toronto, ON M5S 2C7 Canada
Ferrin Contemporary invites you to join Leslie Ferrin for an in person tour of ICAF the International Ceramic Art Fair hosted by the Gardiner Museum in Toronto! The 4th annual fair is a 10-day celebration of contemporary ceramic art that features works by emerging and established artists from a wide range of backgrounds. In addition to Ferrin Contemporary, five international galleries and selected independent artists present recent works in the museum galleries exploring this year’s theme Gathering.
On May 23, the in-person event with Leslie Ferrin is a great opportunity to learn about the work of three gallery artists, Jacqueline Bishop, Peter Pincus and Linda Sikora with gallery director, Leslie Ferrin.
RSVP HERE
The first five people who RSVP and all members of the museum will be given complimentary admission.
JACQUELINE BISHOP IN CONVERSATION WITH RONALD CUMMINGS
Saturday, May 29, 2024, 6 – 8pm
Join ICAF for a conversation between Jacqueline Bishop, featured artist at the International Ceramic Art Fair (ICAF), and Ronald Cummings, associate professor in the Faculty of Humanities’ Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Jacqueline is represented by Ferrin Contemporary in Massachusetts.
This discussion will examine Bishop’s most recent work, Narratives of Migration, which traces family histories of migration and in particular, migration journeys between Jamaica and England. These family portraits and narratives become one way of mapping a history of colonial relations and genealogical entanglements. According to Bishop “it is both my family’s history and a larger English/Jamaican history that I have sought to trace.” Images of family in Narratives of Migration are also layered with flora and fauna “taken from the island to fill English gardens and give rise to the field of Natural history.”
The conversation will also explore Bishop’s ongoing attention to Caribbean lives and landscapes across her visual work, including her plates and porcelain tea services: The Market Woman’s Story, History at the Dinner Table, The Keeper of All The Secrets, and Fauna.
FREE with registration
ARTIST TOUR & POTTERY DEMONSTRATION WITH LINDA SIKORA
Saturday, May 25, 2024, 9:30am – 12:30pm
Featured artist Linda Sikora will lead a tour of her work in the International Ceramic Art Fair (ICAF), followed by an exclusive studio demonstration. Lind a is represented by Ferrin Contemporary in Massachusetts.
Experience firsthand the artist’s unique way of transforming her intuitively and spontaneously made pressed forms into three-dimensional sculptures. Linda will demonstrate both wheel throwing and the making of a pitcher pot referencing early medieval pottery. She will offer insight into her methods of constructing, loading, firing, glazing, and installation, as well as her artistic philosophy. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn from one of the most thoughtful and articulate makers in the field of contemporary ceramics.
$45 General | $38 Gardiner Members | $38 Students with valid Student ID
CERAMIC CRITIQUE WITH LINDA SIKORA
Saturday, May 25, 2024, 2 – 4:30pm
Bring your ceramic work to the Gardiner Museum for a professional critique with featured artist Linda Sikora. Linda is a Professor of Ceramic Art at the New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University.
Participants are invited to bring 1-2 pieces of work in progress for the artist’s feedback. Critique will be offered on an individual or group basis depending on the number of participants and the similarity of works. This is an invaluable opportunity to receive guidance from a leading ceramic artist and professor.
$30 General | $25.50 Gardiner Members | $22 Students with valid Student ID