• John Gill:

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  • John Gill (b. 1949; Renton, WA) has been celebrated in the field of ceramics for over half a century, and...

    Covered Jar, 2023
    Ceramic
    43" x 26" x 17" (109 x 66 x 43 cm)

    Unique

    (JG.25059)

    Inquire

    John Gill (b. 1949; Renton, WA) has been celebrated in the field of ceramics for over half a century, and has long staked his work on the vessel as a starting point, creating endless variations on vases, ewers, bottles, and platters. Gill embraces postmodern levity over discernible functionality, and the resulting works take utility only in name. In this pursuit, Gill focuses on building ceramic volume by joining together and manipulating innumerable clay slabs, and each work manifests in a joyful collision of color, texture, and raucous form.

     
    Gill constructs these using a time-tested hand-building method, joining and molding flat shapes to make the angular and undulating body of each work. This instinct-driven approach comes as a negotiation between the artist’s will and his medium. “I hate to just execute a piece,” Gill states, “instead I ask the clay, what do you want to be?” Guided by pure intuition, the artist finds shape within elemental earth, which he then illuminates with an effervescent array of colors. In stages, each vessel is transformed from wet clay to once-fired bisqueware, which is glazed and fired again to reach completion. “I have to make every work twice,” states Gill, “once when I build the vessel, and another time when I color it.” Each of Gill’s works belies the process of its making, seeming to burst into existence fully formed.
     
    This presentation includes a grouping of monumental vases and covered jars, created over the past three years. These vessels are intricate inside and out, and architectural grandeur on a miniature scale is hidden away within their jubilant exteriors. Especially in his larger open forms, Gill approaches his work from every possible angle, rotating it as though in zero gravity and building it without a defined top or bottom. In the case of his jars, once they finally come down to Earth, the artist completesthem with precise-fitting, highly ornate lids. Gill’s closed forms create new private spaces andinvoke a distinct utility within his lexicon of subverted purposes: to conceal. The inside of the jar becomes a secret, its unseen volume now enclosed.
     
    On the outside of each work, Gill stretches textures and color out onto space, blending art historical lineages with aplomb. The artist especially looks to painting for inspiration, and takes in his surroundings as a painter might to inform his use of light and color in three-dimensional space. Gill’s ceramics synthesize the natural world through diverse schools of thought, employing sensibilities that range from Impressionist to Pop, from Fauvist to Abstract Expressionist. The rugged stepped forms on the outside of one of Gill’s jars could be as easily traced in the carved staircase of an ancient temple as they could be in those of a painting by Marcel Duchamp; the wobbling, graceful curve of a vase’s belly could be as inspired by a river basin as it could be by Stuart Davis’s flattened painted forms. In constantly colliding angular and soft, vibrant and quiet, Gill’s works walk a path that balances tradition and innovation to moving effect.
    • Krater 2, 2023 Ceramic 28" x 27" x 21" (71 x 68.5 x 53.5 cm) Unique (JG.25063)

      Krater 2, 2023
      Ceramic
      28" x 27" x 21" (71 x 68.5 x 53.5 cm)

      Unique
      (JG.25063)

       
      Additional Artwork Details
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    • Krater 1, 2023 Ceramic 29" x 28" x 24" (74 x 71 x 61 cm) Unique (JG.25064)

      Krater 1, 2023
      Ceramic
      29" x 28" x 24" (74 x 71 x 61 cm)

      Unique
      (JG.25064)

       
      Additional Artwork Details
      Inquire
  • 'References to historical ceramics abound in John’s hand-built stoneware. A blue or green glaze, for instance, reflects his love of...

    Krater 3, 2023
    Ceramic
    30 1/2" x 28" x 19" (77.5 x 71 x 48.5 cm)
    Unique
    (JG.25062)

    Inquire

    "References to historical ceramics abound in John’s hand-built stoneware. A blue or green glaze, for instance, reflects his love of Oriental ceramics, a spouted form, his fascination with Persian wares. But his goal has never been to replicate the past; he merely alludes to it. Aptly defining the nature of John’s relationship to a source, Andrea Gill points out, ‘John did not pick Persian ceramics, it picked him. He had a certain feeling for spouted shapes, and he saw the analogy.’” 

     

    - Carolyn Carr, American Craft

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Given in the past to pots, Gill is now discipling emotional tone with sureness of formal design, resulting in more...

    Vase, 2022
    Ceramic
    approximately 18” x 15” x 10” (45.5 x 38 x 25.5 cm)

    Unique
    (JG.23221)

    Inquire

    Given in the past to pots, Gill is now discipling emotional tone with sureness of formal design, resulting in more temperate but improved expressive form. Of equal value is his insight into the formal language of ceramic design which serves as ample reminder of the key role the compositional issues of balance, proportion and rhythm play in effective pottery.  

     

    - Michael Rubin, Ceramics Monthly

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • "My work uses shape and form to inflate color. Working with the realm of function expands the potential, and the history of ceramics, painting, and sculpture collide. Clay has a simple directness - it prints beautifully."  

     

    – John Gill
  • RGB [Installation View] Yossi Milo, New York Photo Credit: Olympia Shannon (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    RGB [Installation View] Yossi Milo, New York Photo Credit: Olympia Shannon (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    John Gill: Occurrence [Installation View] Courtesy of Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL Photo Credit: Zachary Balber (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).

    [Installation View] RGB, Yossi Milo, New York. Photo Credit: Olympia Shannon

     
  •
  • About the Artist

    About the Artist

    John Gill's work has been widely exhibited in the United States and abroad, including at the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Pottery Workshop, Shanghai, China; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY; and Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH, among others. In 2008, Gill was inducted into the International Academy of Ceramics in Geneva and was elected a Fellow at the American Crafts Council in 2014. In 2018, he received the James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Craft Educator Award. The artist lives and works in Alfred, NY.

     

    SELECTED COLLECTIONS

    Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

    Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

    Newark Museum, Newark, NJ

    Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO

    Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI

    Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK

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