Visions In Clay 2024
Amanda Klimek
Amanda Klimek is a California-based artist working in ceramic and mixed media. She has a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute. Recent exhibitions include groups at Blue Line Arts, Pence Gallery, Gearbox Gallery, and solo exhibition at MStark Gallery in 2023.
My work is always becoming itself – outrageously flowery, feminine, explosive, tangled, dancing, unexpected, extra. It takes me on a journey that is non-linear, but not purely abstract. Working with clay, paper and drawing, I create emotive, biomorphic forms. I am drawn to the gestures of transformation found everywhere in nature; endless and simultaneous growth, disintegration, adaptation, and repurposing. In an intuitive and immediate process, I build an exploratory visual language with these archetypal shapes and gestures.
I believe the presence of the maker’s hand builds a connection between artist and audience and that there is meaning in making. I use my hands to collage and recombine form- playing with movement and responding to the juxtapositions of lines and surface. The results are sculptural compositions that explode and meander; tactile journeys through color and form that never rest.
Bloom, 2023
Courtesy of MStark Gallery
Electric fired, Cone 5 obsidian stoneware, with underglaze, overglaze, pen and ink, and cut paper
6 x 8 x 7.5 inches
$800
Erupt, 2023
Courtesy of MStark Gallery
Electric fired, Cone 5 obsidian stoneware, with underglaze, overglaze, cut paper and cut aluminum
12 x 6 x 8 inches
$800