Jonathan Mess
We’re so pleased to announce that Jonathan Mess’s work is now viewable on accessCeramics.
If you are unfamiliar, accessCeramics is a growing collection of contemporary ceramics images by recognized artists enhancing ceramics education worldwide. Take a gander- there is a lot of interesting work, and a variety of tools to search for and categorize the work.
Jonathan Mess has updated his page on artaxis.org. If you’re not already familiar with artaxis, it’s a great independent network of artists working in ceramic media. Please take a moment to check out Jonathan’s updated page, and explore other artists and offerings on the site. It’s an excellent way to see what’s happening in contemporary ceramic art.
Jonathan Mess has been featured in Anna Gleeson’s exhibition, Homo Faber: Man As Maker at Remote.
Remote is an online arts publication working as an evolving exhibition platform for artists and curators. Each project is the curatorial work of invited curators and/or artists that evolves over the duration of the online exhibition/publication. At the end of the 6 month span allotted to each project, the works will be de-installed, edited and made into a hard-copy book which will be available for purchase online and in some specialist shops.
Homo Faber – Man as Maker is curated by Hong Kong based artist Anna Gleeson. It explores making as an activity in its own right, featuring tangible things that can contain a small aesthetic universe with their own vocabulary of materials, shapes, colours and surfaces, tracing the series of decisions the maker has made and noticing the mark of the hand, machine or process that made it.
This was a great opportunity for Jonathan to reflect on his creative process in the context of a variety of other makers. Please take a moment to check out this interesting project: www.remotespace.org/homofaber.html
Maine Art Scene’s editor Brenda Bonneville recently interviewed Jonathan about his life as an artist. It’s so self-enlightening to reflect on your work, process, habits, and personal artistic history. If you’re not yet familiar, Maine Art Scene is a great resource for all things art here in Maine.
Check it out here: Maine Art Scene Interview with Ceramic Artist Jonathan Mess.
Traces has earned a spectacular review in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram, written by Daniel Kany: “Everyone should see this show.”
The review is packed with perceptive observations about the work, but here are a few highlights:
Kany writes, “What we see in “Traces” is actually abstract expressionist painting, but in clay. The works are dense abstractions with swirling lines, looping calligraphic marks and energetic bolts of organic color, all densely bound together as heavily textured fields of painting.”
And, “However, Mess has options the abstract expressionist painters didn’t. He scrapes, furrows and extrudes his slabs as well as building onto them — revealing additive and subtractive sculptural logic. In “Large Traces No. 12,” for example, Mess curls a poured line of black slip (a mostly talc liquid that can be poured into a mold or tinted to use like paint) over similar shapes carved into the surface of the clay. The effect is a literal weaving of the painted line into the surface.”
And finally, “But does all this add up to good painting? In Mess’ case, absolutely yes. Not only is he a skilled sculptor and ceramic artist, he also has a great eye and a surprisingly sharp visual intelligence. The works are boldly energetic and visually exciting, but they are also confident, handsome and sophisticated.”
It is an honor to receive such a discerning and positive review. Please read it for yourself: “Everyone should see this show”.
The Huffington Post’s ArtScene wrote a nice bit of press about Fertile Ground in the article “Current Top Exhibitions in the Western United States.”
Kathryn M Davis writes, ‘Masterfully curated by the heart and bones of Santa Fe Clay, Director Avra Leodas, “Fertile Ground” was envisioned by her as an exhibition to serve as fodder for Critical Santa Fe, a recent symposium on art criticism and ceramics. “Fertile Ground’s” artists do things with clay that don’t often get done.’ About Jonathan Mess’ ceramic sculptures featured in the show, she writes, ‘Geological eons are invoked by Jonathan Mess’ cast boxes, while his surfaces are as veined as a craquelured Old Master’s.’
The show has ended since the publication of this article, but much of the work will remain at Santa Fe Clay for a time, so if you’re in the area, be sure to stop by and check out their extensive warehouse collection of contemporary ceramic work.
May 17, 2009
Waste Nothing: Jonathan Mess at Two Point Gallery
Jonathan’s show, Landfills and By-Products, at Two Point Gallery was reviewed by Renee Lauzon for the Portland Examiner. Check it out here!
