Visions in Clay 2025

Kelsey Duncan
Website - https://www.kelseyduncan.net/
Kelsey Duncan is an American Artist currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. Duncan received his Bachelors of Fine Art from the University of Montana and his Masters in Fine Art from Ohio University. He has received multiple artist fellowships that have allowed him to pursue a full-time studio practice through 6 different national and international artist residency programs. His work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. Most recently he was a resident artist at CRETA in the historic center in Rome, Italy. Duncan has also been an instructor of record at Ohio University and a long-term instructor at the Archie Bray Foundation, the 92Y and the Clay Art Center in New York. He currently serves as Assistant Professor in Ceramics at Middle Tennessee State University. Through his work in figuration, Duncan explores the resilient nature of the human experience and the complex politics of the human body.
This new research trajectory was conceived during a 5-week artist residency at CRETA in Rome, Italy this past summer. This new work explores the materiality and longevity of the sculptural and utilitarian object as it pertains to permanence, impermanence and the evolving function of the monument. Although these works are not monumental in scale, they are an extension of my monolith series, where the ceramic surfaces are meant to emulate objects comprised of marble, granite and calcified limestone. For me, these forms are familiar, but the surfaces are a new kind of illusion to explore. Objects tell a story through surface, as they transform from raw material into refined sculptural objects. I am interested in that object's narrative as it outlives our own. A story colored by the abrasion of time, evidence of neglect or as a cherished heirloom.

Monolite Dormiente
Marbled and Inlaid Italian Stoneware courtesy of CRETA, Rome
9.5 in. x 7 in. x 6.5 in.
2024
$875






