CERAMIC MASTERPIECES – RON NAGLE

Ron Nagle was born in San Francisco in 1939 and he has been making ceramic art pieces for over fifty years.

He was strongly associated with the California Clay Revolution, but the majority of his inspiration came from a whole different world. Nagle has always created small (about 25cm tall and 35cm long), abstract, unique pieces, deep colored ceramics sculptures. Each piece is conceived as a drawing: it’s used to calculate and abstract a starting shape that reminds something he might have noticed. From the drawing he shapes the clay and puts the object on kiln, lets it dry, then suffuses the shape in polychrome. The vivid colors that characterized his style aren’t painted but baked on. Some of his sculptures look like plants or vegetables, others remind genitals or the act of sex. The artist sees his sculptures as pure 3-D paintings.

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