ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Making Place Matter is an ambitious and experimental exhibition, symposium, and publication that will accompany the opening of The Clay Studio’s newly built home located in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood at 1425 North American Street. On April 8, The Clay Studio will enter into a new chapter of its nearly 50-year history, with the concept of ‘place’ taking on critical importance as the organization grows into its new home. Larger classrooms, state-of-the-art studios, an outdoor sculpture garden, a rooftop event space, and luminous new gallery spaces will meet the increased demand from students, artists, and visitors. Just as significant, building a resonant conversation between clay, artists, and audiences in the new Jill Bonovitz Gallery, Making Place Matter is organized around the complex meanings of place in our contemporary social conversation. The exhibition will open on April 23 and run through October 2, 2022, and is free to the public.
Using clay and cultural heritage as sources of inspiration, Making Place Matter will feature Philadelphia-based, Peruvian-born artist Kukuli Velarde, American-born, Massachusetts-based artist Molly Hatch, and Egyptian American artist Ibrahim Said, now based in North Carolina. Each artist explores the idea of place with regard to personal history, cultural heritage, and social justice. Clay is the material embodiment of place. Made of the earth we stand on, clay has the capacity to articulate cultural perspectives, social engagement, and artistic intentions. By using clay as a means to investigate ideas of place, Making Place Matter will create powerful tools to share with the new and established community, creating a feeling of belonging within the Jill Bonovitz Gallery for The Clay Studio’s various constituencies.
ABOUT THE A MI VIDA PROJECT
Kukuli Velarde’s A Mi Vida project includes a sculptural installation, painting, performance, and off-site interventions. The series focuses on the artist’s desire to prolong the sensation of holding her now elementary-age daughter Vida in her arms as a baby. It also embodies her anguish at the family separation at the U.S. – Mexico border. Like many of Velarde’s works, these clay sculptures entangle reality and dreamscape, blending influences from contemporary life and ancient indigenous Peruvian imagery and patterning.
FEATURED ARTIST IN THE EXHIBITION
KUKULI VELARDE
Kukuli Velarde is a Peruvian-American artist who specializes in painting and ceramic sculptures made out of clay and terra-cotta. Velarde focuses on the themes of gender and the consequences of colonization in Latin American contemporary culture. Her ceramic work is a visual investigation of aesthetics, cultural survival, and inheritance.
Velarde has had multiple solo exhibitions, most recently including Kukuli Velarde: The Complicit Eye at Taller Puertorriqueño (Philadelphia, PA), Kukuli Velarde at AMOCA (Pomona, CA), and Plunder Me, Baby at Peters Project Gallery (Santa Fe, NM). Her work may also be found in numerous public institutions, including the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI), and the Museo de Art Contemporaneo de Lima, (Lima, Peru).
Velarde is the recipient of numerous grants, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, a United States Artists Knight Fellowship, and a PEW Fellowship in Visual Art. She was awarded the Grand Prize for her work exhibited at the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale in Icheon, South Korea. Velarde holds a BFA (magna cum laude) from Hunter College of the University of New York. Velarde lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.
INQUIRE • HERE •
Kukuli Velarde, “A Mi Vida III”, 2017, earthenware underglaze, paint, resin, 24 x 10 x 6″
MORE ON THE CLAY STUDIO
THE CLAY STUDIO
The Clay Studio is a nonprofit arts organization with internationally renowned artist residency programs, classes and events, exhibitions, community engagement programs, a shop, and more. They serve as a place where established and emerging artists come to shape their careers, a vital resource for arts education at local schools and community organizations, and a destination where people from every neighborhood in Philadelphia and all over the world can explore the vast world of clay. Visit theclaystudio.org for more information.