RECEPTIONSATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 6 – 9 PMTHE ARTIST WILL BE PRESENT
Mimesis
MIMESIS: The imitative representation of nature and human behavior in art and literature
-Vocabulary.com
Mindy Solomon is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Miami of California artist Jay Kvapil.
Inspired by topography, Jay creates surfaces that can only be achieved after years of making. Dedicated to hard work as both an artist and University educator, the fruits of his labor are clearly evident in his oeuvre. Kvapil writes: “Most of the recent pieces allude to landscape, intentionally so. After all, I grew up in Arizona, which is a land of vast desert landscapes, but it is also rich in intimate pictorial spaces found in small rocks and stones. Some of the pieces have an obvious horizon line, giving them a distant landscape, while others depict an intimate landscape through which we travel – whether literally or in our minds –without a specific reference.
In the end, what I make is pottery just pottery. I’m not interested in calling it ceramic art or sculptural ceramics. It’s pottery, plain and simple, because that is the language that it speaks and the history from which it comes, and to whom it speaks. If my work is successful, I like to think that it is kind of conversation with potters that came before me, and the ones who will come after.“
Trained as a master potter in Japan, Kvapil also finds inspiration in the simple elegant forms that were emblematic of the mid-century modern period. Artists like James Lovera, and Gertrud and Otto Natzler paved the way with their beautifully articulated minimalist vessels and volcanic surfaces. Kvapil’s works are an homage to the genre and continue to prove that good design is timeless.
Informed by geographical surfaces, modernist design, Japanese pottery and the alchemy of his glaze confections, Jay Kvapil brings high craft and contemporary art together.
About Jay Kvapil
Jay Kvapil is a California artist whose work has been shown at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, the Oakland Museum, Scripps College, the San Jose Museum of Art, San Francisco State University, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and numerous other national and international exhibitions. Previously he was represented by the Dorothy Weiss Gallery in San Francisco, and the Joanne Rapp Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is currently represented by Couturier Gallery in Los Angeles, where he has had three solo exhibitions in the past five years, and Galerie LeFebvre et Fils in Paris.
Upon finishing undergraduate studies, Jay traveled to Japan where he studied tea ceremony ceramics in 1974 -75 at the Takatori Seizan Pottery on the island of Kyushu in Southern Japan, achieving the rank of Journeyman Potter.
After returning to the United States, he received both his MA and MFA from San Jose State University where he also served as Conference Director for the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts Conference in San Jose, 1982.
He has been a Professor of Art at California State University Long Beach for the past thirty years. As an administrator, he served at CSULB as Director of the School of Art for twelve years and as Associate Dean and Interim Dean for the College of the Arts, and as Dean of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication at California State University Northridge. He is currently a Member of the Commission on Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, where he also previously served as Board Member and Treasurer.space”. He is currently a Member of the Commission on Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, where he also previously served as Board Member and Treasurer.
After returning to the United States, he received both his MA and MFA from San Jose State University where he also served as Conference Director for the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts Conference in San Jose, 1982.
He has been a Professor of Art at California State University Long Beach for the past thirty years. As an administrator, he served at CSULB as Director of the School of Art for twelve years and as Associate Dean and Interim Dean for the College of the Arts, and as Dean of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication at California State University Northridge. He is currently a Member of the Commission on Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, where he also previously served as Board Member and Treasurer.space”. He is currently a Member of the Commission on Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, where he also previously served as Board Member and Treasurer.
