Artist: Jeff Campana

Medium: Ceramic

Size: 11" x 5.5" x 5.5"

About the Artist:

I've always found things more interesting once they were taken apart. My fascination with process, structure, and the way things work has always been a driving force in my artistic pursuits. Previously, I have become known for wheel-thrown pottery that was dissected and reassembled, yielding decorative lines with structural and psychological implications. Are those simple lines, or are they scars? What story do they tell?

After nearly a decade working along a fixed process and concept, I needed a new experience in the studio. During a summer residency at Studio 740, I had the chance to change things up. The result is a new way of making molds, which are systemic in their design and fully modular in use. Any piece or combination of pieces can be replaced by any other piece or combination of pieces, and it all clicks together on circular keys.

I see this work as a continuation of the ideas explored previously, but through a shift in processes, the mold is now the tool by which the forms are deconstructed and reconstructed. With each addition of a new module, a slew of new combinations are possible. As the library grows, the possibilities in form are amplified and the forms evolve and react. My experience in making these is exploratory. As I build the object in void, the presence of a form is only revealed when I de-mold the object. Flashing, the lines that are the result of mold parting lines, have replaced the lines previously cut into form.

Biography
Jeff Campana is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Kennesaw State University outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to his arrival at Kennesaw, he was a long-term Artist-in-Residence at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts. Additionally, he has been a short term artist at Studio 740 and Red Lodge Clay Center. He has taught at Bennington College, the University of Louisville, and Indiana University Southeast. He holds an MFA from Indiana University Bloomington, and a BFA from University of Wisconsin - Whitewater. His work appears in numerous publications and he exhibits across the United States.