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Julia Feld

Artist's Work

Veiled Truth

    Work introduction

    As an artist I explore different mediums and painterly techniques that are available in the contemporary ceramic practice. I’m interested in the integration of two aspects of my work — the combination of sculptural forms and painterly surface treatment - in order to create a unique work of art. I’m looking for a way to make this integration fluid, powerful and contemporary. Painting on clay is one of the oldest and most versatile traditions that has been used for centuries to decorate ceramics. In contemporary practice, painting on clay is not just a decoration; it is a fruitful union between a three-dimensional form and a two-dimensional surface. Currently I paint on ceramic sculptures with underglazes to create a story through a narrated, surrealistic, well-rendered painting.

    In my work I combine an abstract curvilinear sculptural form with surreal narrative painting in order to create an illusion of dynamically changing reality. I build with clay and paint with underglazes. I create an impression of interchangeability between flat image and three-dimensional form. Every sculptural form has a distinctive shape and painted narrative is not simply a decoration but a harmonious continuity of the intended message.

    I’m interested in all aspect of human psychology, but especially in complexity of intrapersonal struggle, duality of behavioral motivations and interpretations, and fragility of self-esteem. My sculptures convey the internal world of a person, as if it is contained inside a closed form. I'm looking for a three-dimensional space that can hold an external world, the world of a broken and twisted perspective. A world remembered, imagined or influenced by the past, a world that is forced by the inversion to live inside a ceramic sculpture, a world that transitions from one dimensionality to the other – a world of a dream, a world of unfulfilled expectations.

    Artist Biography

    Ashwini Bhat, an artist based in Petaluma, California, holds an M.A degree in literature and anearlier career in classical Indian dance. She studied ceramics with American expatriate Ray Meeker inPondicherry, India.

    Bhat’s work explores the deep relationship between the human and non-human, between the constructed and the inherent. She often introduces radical but somehow familiar forms to suggest the complex connection between the sculptural and the human body.

    Her work has been exhibited nationally & internationally in, among others, The Lacoste/Keane Gallery, Cavin-Morris Gallery, Cohen Gallery/Brown University, the American Jazz Museum, the Newport Art Museum; Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park (Japan) India Art Fair (India), FuLe International Ceramic Art Museum (China); Woodfire Tasmania (Australia). Her sculpture also has been widely reviewed and featured in Brooklyn Rail (USA), Lana Turner: a Journal of Poetry and Opinion

    (USA), Riot Material (USA), Ceramic Art and Perception (USA/Australia),, Ceramics Ireland (Ireland), New Ceramics (Germany), Caliban (USA), Crafts Arts International (Australia), The Studio Potter (USA), Logbook (Ireland), and Ceramics Monthly (USA).