Adam Chau is an artist working in New York. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute’s Designed Objects program, his research has been published in Ceramics Technical, Studio Potter, Ceramics Art and Perception, Ceramics Monthly, and New Ceramics. In 2018 he was awarded the NCECA Emerging Artist Fellowship and in 2019 he was accepted into the International Academy of Ceramics. Solo exhibitions include Harvard Ceramics, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, The Clay Studio, and Taoxichuan in Jingdezhen, China. In 2017 Adam curated Reinvented, an exhibit featuring an international artist roster featuring digitally produced ceramics, which travelled the US to five locations for two years. He is currently a board member of NCECA, Artaxis, and The Color Network.
Past Visiting Artist
Namdoo Kim
Namdoo Kim is an artist with great intellectual curiosity, enormous technical capability, and a deep interest in human society and culture. Kim’s work focuses on issues derived from the material desires among people and their influence, using glass and ceramics, which are the central medium of his works, and they are reflected in cynical perspectives with a sense of humor and satire. While bright and playful on the surface, Kim’s works referencing toys, Adidas athleisure footwear, and other familiar consumer items hold a darker meaning. Building from the ground covered by pop art of the late 20th century, Kim’s pieces have an edge that cuts open and lays bare the contradictions, moral decay, and disappointment inherent within overheated consumer pursuits.
Kim was born and grew up in South Korea. He completed his undergraduate degree in fine arts focusing on glass and ceramics at Hong-Ik University in Seoul, South Korea. Kim then traveled to the United States and embarked on an MFA degree at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, which he completed in 2013. Kim completed his Ph.D. within the Glass Workshop at the School of Art and Design, Australian National University in Canberra Australia in 2021.
Chris Riccardo
Chris Riccardo’s sculptures are a direct physical manifestation of his inner thoughts and moral struggles. He wants his viewers to share in his insecurities and discomfort—if one walks away from his work and feels somewhat violated, excited, intrigued, and maybe even a little happier, then he feels he has succeeded. His process begins with a thought, a vision, a look—some trigger that draws him to the clay. No longer using exhaustive preliminary sketches and maquettes, he simply visualizes how he wants the clay to look and begins slowly and painstakingly to build and tear at the surface, gradually making aesthetic changes as he sees fit.
Chris Riccardo received his BFA from Boston University in 1990. Chris served as the sculpture department chair and foundry director at the Armory Art Center in Florida from 1998 to 2014. Chris was a Bray summer resident in 2012, a long-term resident 2015-2017, and served as the Executive Director at the Holter Museum of Art from 2015-2022.
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Didem Mert
Being the first-gen American of a Turkish woodworker, I was raised in a design-rich environment that has influenced who I am and my current body of ceramic work. Geometry, texture, play, symbolism, color, and the functionality of my work emanates from this artistic environment. I draw upon my cultural heritage to bring a unique, imaginative sensibility to my work. My pieces largely feature a combination of collage, drawing, and illustration to create a cultural visual language specific to my personal life. Combining vibrant colors and diverse textures to create pieces that are both eye-catching and practical I aim to create pieces that evoke emotion, nostalgia, and sense of playfulness directed through the color palette and textural surfaces.
Didem Mert (she/they) was born and raised in Cincinnati, OH. Mert received their BFA (ceramics) from Northern Kentucky University in 2014 and MFA (ceramics) from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2017. Mert has exhibited nationally in places such as The Clay Studio, AKAR, The Archie Bray Gallery, The Erie Art Museum, and over forty other venues. Didem’s work was published in Ceramics Monthly’s 2014 Undergraduate Showcase. Mert was awarded a first prize grant through the Three Arts Foundation in 2014. They were featured on the cover of Pottery Making Illustrated’s January/February 2016 issue. Mert was included on C File’s list of 15 Potters to Watch in 2016 and was featured on Architectural Digest’s 10 Ceramic Artists Giving Pottery A Modern Update. Mert led a residency at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts during the summer of 2017. They were honored as one of Ceramics Monthly’s Emerging Artists of 2018. Mert was a summer resident at the Archie Bray Foundation in 2018. Didem currently lives in Sebastopol, CA and works as a full-time studio potter and workshop instructor.
Jae Won Lee
As the term, “a homing instinct,” indicates, her current artistic research lies in the instinctual directing homeward in terms of the philosophical return of dust to dust, and the poetic return to a physical homeland and to nature. Moreover, the pandemic lockdown made Jae Won Lee ponder upon a psychological and emotional horizon-expanding, only back to the country of origin for research and direct exchange opportunities in Korea, where she became absent for four decades. Jae Won explores this personal aspect as a means of conveying the inner landscape of her heart and mind through the creation of an interpretive visual language, using floral patterns and fragments of landscape. Under the title, “In Search of Streams and Mountains,” embarked on an artistic journey to a new territory, looking for those horizons of self in the exploration of the actual landscape views depicted in traditional Asian painting and poetry.
Jae Won Lee received a BFA in sculpture from California State University, Long Beach and an MFA in ceramics from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Lee is currently Professor at Michigan State University and other institutes she taught include Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Camberwell College of Arts in London, the UK, and Chung Nam National University, Deajeon, Korea, California State University, Long Beach, and the University of Washington, Seattle.
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Heesoo Lee
Heesoo Lee’s work explores the vulnerability of the human condition through the metaphor of the natural world. Her artistic language, formed by observations of material, nature, and place, engages with themes of identity, connection, and time. In describing subtle variations of light, texture, color, and shadow as they exist in nature, Lee is, fundamentally, illuminating a range of human emotions and the humbling reality of being a feeling person in a vast and changeable world.
Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Heesoo earned her BA in art from Ewha University. Heesoo began a full-time studio practice in Berkeley, CA in 2000. From there, she relocated to Maui, where she established a thriving studio business. Heesoo was a summer resident at the Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts in 2013 and returned in the fall of 2014 as a long-term resident artist. She is currently a full time studio artist in Helena, MT