Barry Friedman Ltd. is pleased to present “Clay Bodies” featuring the figurative sculpture of 10 artists from 5 different countries, running in tandem with the Museum of Arts and Design’s opening fall exhibition “Body & Soul, New International Ceramics” (9/17/13 - 3/2/14). “Clay Bodies” will open with a public reception at Barry Friedman Gallery on Thursday, September 19, from 6-8p.

Contemporary figurative sculpture, often tough in appearance and with narrative content, deals with current social, political, and cultural issues, and more pointedly the environment, sexuality, gender, and assimilation. These common threads are apparent in the sculptures of these accomplished international artists. While the intent of some is quite apparent, many of the works have obscure narratives that the viewer is left to define.

Originally to be installed in MAD’s exhibition, Tip Toland’s, “Pulse,” a dramatic life-size sculpture of a nude woman on a swing in motion proved too large for the museum and will instead be on view in Barry Friedman Gallery’s window facing the High Line. Originally featured in “Melt,” Toland’s solo exhibition at the Bellevue Arts Museum in 2008, the outstretched woman, her head thrown back in abandon with long black hair cascading to the floor, accepts the tenuous threads from which she hangs and embraces the moment.

Beth Cavener Stichter’s work represents psychological portraits of people articulated in animal form with subtle human features.

Each figure explores gestures and expressions that subliminally broadcast psychological states during moments of tension, embodying the impacts of aggression, isolation and powerlessness.

Cristina Cordova creates haunting, vulnerable, and mysterious figures by transposing visual effects in religious iconography to a contemporary art context. Cordova’s goal is to “have these objects both perform as reflections of our shared humanity as well as question and confuse socio-cultural notions of gender, race, beauty and dominance.”

Alessandro Gallo creates hybridized human/animal forms that depict the everyday minutia of urban life. Each realistically rendered human form has the head of an animal creating a disturbing illusion of reality. Gallo continues in the tradition of using animals to convey specific human characteristics and personality traits, sometimes humorously and more often poignantly.

Fox’s life-size, intensely realistic, racially and ethnically diverse sculptures give her work a political import. Her figures reference ancient archetypes found in religious ritual, folklore, and art history.

Often called an erotic Surrealist for his daring representations of sexuality, relationships, and human encounter, Isupov takes narrative subject matter and merges it with ceramic sculptural form. The bold color palette, heavily tattooed faces, and textured surfaces relate these works to the aesthetics of traditional Russian art, as well as to contemporary styles of illustration.

Kondo’s figurative sculptures are porcelain life-casts of the artist seated in a lotus Buddha-like position. By incorporating himself into the works they become deeply personal. The water-like glazes that have washed over his slab constructions in the past now wash over his head and body. The nature of man’s relationship to water has been a recurrent theme throughout the artist’s career.

Regan’s imagery addresses the natural cycles of life and death, as well as the dynamics between nature and human society with a particular focus on the effect of mass consumption on our environment. The intricate and detailed images are created using the sgraffito technique.

Takamori’s work is inspired by memories of growing up in Japan in the 1950s and 60s. His concern is for the human condition with an emphasis on issues of personal and cultural identity, assimilation, class, sexuality and cultural hybridization. A marriage of Western and Asian influences, his distinctive figures are hand-built and incorporate elements from several aesthetic traditions, including American west coast funk, traditional Asian calligraphy, Japanese folk ceramics, and Edo-period ink drawings.

Tip Toland’s hyper-realistic sculptures are fragile creatures, at different stages in life. Often nude, they are stripped of social context and share a similar vulnerability, isolation, and innocence. These studies of the human psyche convey common traits of the human condition, some of which the viewer may recognize in himself or herself.

Velarde’s Isichapuitu series is based on a pre-Columbian ceramic figure from the Huastecan Culture. Reinterpreted as selfportraits, each figure tells a different story creating a multi-layered narrative that merges familial and cultural legacies. Of particular interest to Velarde are issues of cultural hybridization, religious and political colonization, as well as sexual and gender roles.

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