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KEN PRICE |
Ken Price has been making elegant yet edgy ceramic sculptures since he began his artistic career in the early 1960s. Born in Los Angeles, Price received a BFA degree from the University of Southern California before studying ceramics at the Los Angeles County Art Institute and receiving an MFA degree in 1959 from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. As a former student of the famed ceramicist Peter Voulkos, Price was instrumental in the elevation of ceramics from craft to fine art. Moving beyond purely functional forms, Price was a pioneer in the use of fired clay as a vehicle for self-expression. Although a well-respected artist, wider recognition of Price’s work has been minimal until recently, causing one critic to dub him “…maybe the most underrated living American artist.”
Ken Price’s abstract shapes are built from fired clay and are covered with intricate jewel-like colors. The lush surfaces are not created with ceramic glaze, but with multiple layers of acrylic paint applied over the clay, which is then sanded down to reveal the colors beneath. The forms of his sculptures are quirky and sexually-suggestive hybrids that call to mind everything from sea creatures, body parts, and cartoons to the abstract shapes of such Modern masters as Henry Moore and Jean Arp. In works such as Whitey, 2003, Price’s sensibility, referred to by one critic as “lyrical formalist,” is tempered by the zaniness of his shapes. The droopy and bulbous blobs in Whitey while reminiscent of natural forms in the human body, or large, coagulated drips, which also have a kind of wacky, cartoon-like sensibility. Filtered through the language of Modernist abstraction, this work has an air of quiet dignity as well.
- Jennifer Bayles, Educator for Special Projects