JUGS, 2015
Jeffry Mitchell, Saya Moriyasu, Rebecca Morgan, Brian Murphy, Nicholas Nyland
September 12-October 17, 2015 at The Alice Gallery
JUGS features the work of five artists who have interpreted the jug form, particularly what’s known as the ugly jug or face jug. Curated by artist Nicholas Nyland, the works in the exhibition share a common sense of playful dialog with historical art and craft traditions including Northern Renaissance allegorical painting, outsider and folk art, contemporary Funk art and underground comix. Like those predecessors, these artists and ceramics dive headfirst into the base materiality and emotive possibilities of their medium and don’t shy from the personal, the sexual or the absurd.
Jeffry Mitchell has created two jugs joined by a rope and hung on the wall by a single nail. It is characteristic of Mitchell’s exuberant work that draws upon a catholic array of sources. He embraces associations with earnest folk and self-taught artists, which belies sophisticated and layered references to larger art-historical and social narratives.
Saya Moriyasu’s interest in the impure mixing of cultural traditions, such as Chinoiserie and Americana is rooted in the fact that she is the product of a Japanese father and a mother born and raised on an Oregon farm. This finds expression in the form of Hillbilly Moonshine Dream, in which a buxom blond emerges from the top of a smiling face jug happily smoking a pipe.
Rebecca Morgan’s face jugs find common kin with artists who celebrate the marvelous grotesqueries of everyday people and low art forms – from her experience growing up in central Pennsylvania, to Pieter Breugal the Elder, to American folk art and through to R. Crumb. This exhibition features new raku jugs created during a residency at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts.
Brian Murphy’s work in the exhibition has a strong connection to both the 19th C. face jug tradition and the West Coast Funk ceramics in its emphatic materiality and irreverent subject matter. Murphy’s Cigar Ugly Jug squints through clenched eyeholes as it smokes a cigar with its sphincter-like mouth.
Nicholas Nyland’s work plays at the margins where painting and sculpture merge and where fine art and craft overlap. His palette jugs are glazed as if they had been used in lieu of an artist’s palette, while the glaze of Face Jug barely clings to the form, running from the features in rivulets of color.
Artist Bios:
Jeffry Mitchell (born in 1958) lives and works in Seattle, WA and received a BA in painting from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas and an MFA in printmaking at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia. Notable solo exhibitions of Mitchell’s work include: Like a Valentine: The Art of Jeffry Mitchell, 2012-2013, Henry Art Gallery; Some Things and Their Shadows, 2009, Kittredge Gallery, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA; Shiny Happy Pretty (with Tina Hoggatt), 2008, Missoula Art Museum; Hanabuki, 2001, Henry Art Gallery; My Spirit, 1992, New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; and Documents Northwest: The Poncho Series, 1990, Seattle Art Museum. Mitchell is represented by the Ambach and Rice gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
Rebecca Morgan received a BA from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and her MFA from Pratt Institute, NY. Press for her work includes Time Out New York, ARTnews, Whitehot Magazine, Beautiful Decay, Artslant, Juxtapoz Magazine, and Berlin's Lodown Magazine, among others. She is the recipient of a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, a Vermont Studio Center full fellowship, and the George Rickey Residency at Yaddo. Exhibitions include Gasser Grunert Gallery, NY, Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, Whitdel Arts, Detroit, MI, Coop Gallery, Nashville, TN, and Spring/Break, New York, NY. Morgan is represented by Asya Geisberg Gallery, NY.
Brian Murphy (born Willimantic, CT, 1970) lives and works in Federal Way, WA. He received a M.F.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle. He has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at the Winston Wächter gallery, Platform Gallery, Suyama Space, and the Esther Claypool Gallery, Seattle, WA. Murphy’s work has been included in group exhibitions at the Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA; Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA; Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and the Wright Exhibition Space, Seattle, WA. Murphy’s awards include a Pollock Krasner Grant from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, New York, NY and the Neddy Artist Fellowship from the Behnke Foundation, Seattle, WA.
Saya Moriyasu has exhibited at venues including the Deitch Art Parade (New York), Aqua Art Miami (Florida), Montserrate College of Art (Massachusetts), Henry Art Gallery Gift Shop Project, Bellevue Arts Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, and Wing Luke Museum for the Asian American Experience (Washington unless noted otherwise). After graduating with a BFA from the University of Washington, Moriyasu was awarded residencies at Skowhegan and at Pilchuck Glass School. A decade long member of SOIL Artist-Run Gallery and represented by G. Gibson Gallery in Seattle, WA.
Nicholas Nyland (b. 1976) lives and works in Tacoma, WA. He received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadephia. His artwork has been included in exhibitions throughout the region including the Tacoma Art Museum, Bellevue Art Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle. A 2012 Solo exhibition at Prole Drift, Seattle was reviewed in Art in America magazine. Recent public projects include temporary works for the Olympic Sculpture Park and ALL RISE, Seattle. Nyland received an Artist Trust Fellowship in 2008 and was a finalist for the 2013 Contemporary Northwest Art Award.