Current Exhibitions

Rudolph Serra

Martha Clippinger

4/5/13 – 6/7/13

Rudolph Serra: Ceramics
Martha Clippinger: Odds and Ends
Opening Reception: Friday, April 5 from 6-8 p.m.

Rudolph Serra has been working in ceramics for more than three decades and during that time he has consistently asked the question, “What does clay have to offer in the creative experience?”  In the 1970’s Serra studied at San Francisco State College with Stephan De Stabler, and at University of California at Berkeley with Peter Voulkos. Since then he has been making high-fired terracotta sculptures that seek to find non-utilitarian forms. By asking of clay how it folds, splashes, gouges, cuts, wrinkles, cracks, burnishes, etc., he reveals its sculptural form. Serra’s work is in numerous collections and he has been honored with a number of awards including the Pollock Krasner Grant and the National Endowment for the Arts Grant.

Martha Clippinger makes small constructions that balance between painting and sculpture. Using discarded lumber found in her Brooklyn neighborhood, she begins each new object by constructing small, intimate and quirky forms which she then paints. Clippinger first lets the found lumber dictate the shapes that she constructs, never modifying the lumber, and like a collage, arranges the found lumber until she arrives at an interesting form which she then begins to paint. The painting aspect of her work is a lively cocktail of color and geometric shapes that seems driven by the construction of the found lumber. Clippinger has an undergraduate degree in Art History from Fordham University and a Masters of Fine Art from Mason Gross School of Art, Rutgers University. Her debut exhibition was in New York City at Elizabeth Harris Gallery in 2012.

Visit Rudolph Serra’s website
Visit Martha Clippinger’s website