“Black Clay”
- Democracy Chain
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
by Matthew Kangas
Arte Noir Gallery, Seattle, Washington
Continuing through February 22, 2026
The twenty-five artists in the “Black Clay” ceramics invitational hail from Washington, Texas, District of Columbia, California, Illinois, Tennessee and elsewhere, but trace their heritages to Nigeria, Ghana, the Philippines, and other lands. As a result “Black Clay” offers a mixture of contemporary art themes — colonialism, racial injustice, Black pride — and conventional ceramic techniques that encompass pottery, figurative sculpture, and wall-mounted functional shapes and masks. Overall, the artists represent a wide spectrum of professionalism, bringing together self-taught folk artists with academics, some using clay along with other materials to convey their intentions.
Although the collective effect of the group is impressive, the installation, crowded as it is into a small corner space, is not. Pedestals of varying heights compete with sightlines for wall-mounted works, reinforcing the second-class status so often assigned to ceramics. Regardless, the artists rise above the limitations of the display and offer considerable pleasures and contemplations of aesthetic and socio-political issues, sometimes both in the same artwork.
Sasa Aakil’s two works present both conditions. “Joy is a Revolution,” a wall installation of 16 unglazed cup and bowl shapes in half-relief, emphasizes both pan-African firing methods and village shapes. The more politically explicit “Memory” consists of 15 small rectangular medallions impressed with the names of African-Americans attacked or killed by law enforcement officers, including Trayvon Martin and Breonna Taylor. With their darkened background and varied color overlays, the lettering on the memorials is difficult to read, but gradually the meaning becomes clear; they are mini-tombstones.
Esther Ervin deals with the history of slavery. Her “Enslaved Trades People” drapes a golden chain around a vase with figurative imagery of slaves as wrap-around decoration. The work reminds us of the origins of African-American ceramics, as curator Hassan Kirkland points out in his statement. Slave potters were long unidentified but were able, like David Drake (once known simply as “Big Dave” by the way he signed his pots), to defy bans on literacy by writing directly on each pot.
Similarly, Darius Scott’s “Wayfinder||North Star,” a wall-hanging male face, alludes to “Ghanaian artisanal masks,” according to the artist, with its closed eyes and facial expression of resting, ”acknowledging the inherited trauma of enslavement.” Over one foot high, it has a brooding presence that, mounted high as it is, oversees the entire exhibition.
Two portraits offer contrasting visions of Black femininity. “Weeping Willow/Tangled Dreams,” a large bust by Willow Vergara-Agyakwa has a powerful, if pleading, facial expression. Dreadlocks are reinforced by the darker color of clay and glaze. In a remarkable amplification of the female face, two other busts by Ebony Watts — one glazed, one painted — express joy and radiant humor in their drenched, painterly surfaces. In “Gae Yah,” Watts inserts golden earrings. They join the colorful appearance of other figurative works, such as the smaller statuettes of Lea Cook.
The animal heads of Sierra Bundy, “Shadow Work” and “Guide #2,” may allude to human-animal relationships assigned to enslaved peoples on plantations. These are among the most materially virtuosic works on view, with complicated firing techniques that emulate animal skin color and exposed flesh.
“Mirror, Mirror” (2024) by Myla Crawford of Memphis uses melted marbles for its interior to great effect. Also hung high, it casts an unusual aura on the entire display. Nearby on the same wall, “Twisted Galaxy Portal” (2025) by Del Bey inserts metal chains around its squashed oval shape, symbolizing the confines of enslavement, but with greater restraint and less ideological explicitness. These subtle, abstract sculptures are the most powerful and appealing works of “Black Clay.”
Tammie Rubin and Angel Ohome push the limits of ceramic expectations the farthest of all. In the former’s “Always & Forever” series, conical blue porcelain shapes are lined up on a single shelf. They operate on two levels: one in which they are simple, beautifully speckled forms, the other in which they ominously allude to the headdresses of Ku Klux Klan members. Rubin cancels out the violent presence of the KKK with her exquisite treatment of the blue porcelain.
In a highly formal grid format in the tradition of Minimalism and the Bauhaus, Ohome’s “Blood Stained Paths” and “In Search of River and Sun” are given titles that refer to painful racial histories. But seen on the wall, they present architectural decoration and substantial formal issues such as color relationships and complex compositions which extend beyond the initial impulse of their titles. So it is with much of the other work in “Black Clay:” the material strengths and fashioning reinforce substantial resistance and outrage, but such executions and handling guarantee repeated viewing and endurance. The medium carries the message regardless of urgent sincerity.
Matthew Kangas writes regularly for Visual Art Source eNewsletter; Ceramics: Art & Perception (Australia); and Preview (Canada). Besides reviewinhttps://www.amazon.com/s?k=Matthew+Kangas&ref=nb_sb_nossg for many years at Art in America, American Craft, Art Ltd., Vanguard and Seattle Times, he is the author of numerous catalogs and monographs, the latest being the award-winning Italo Scanga 1932-2001. Four anthologies of his critical essays, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas.
Comments