McKenzie Fine Arts Presents Ursula Morley Price 12/18

McKenzie Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new hand-built ceramic sculpture in stoneware, by British-born artist Ursula Morley Price. Opening to the public on Thursday, November 18, the show will run through Saturday, December 18, 2010.

For her current exhibition, Price has revisited sculptural elements from previous work, some recent, some decades-old, leading to dynamic developments and new combinations. Price exhibited "fountain" forms two years ago, which employed elegantly flared flanges and smooth edges to mimic the graceful fluidity of water slipping over the edges of a container. Her current fountain forms are equally balanced, but much more energetic. With dramatically arched flanges and spiked edges, they suggest forceful spray frozen in time or the wet plumage of a bird shaking its wings while bathing. A spherical pom-pom shape used by Price in the 1980s has been similarly reinterpreted and visually energized. The original longitudinal flanges now have pronounced waves, especially near the equator of each piece. The strong undulations create directional patterns of shadow and light that repeatedly draw the eye back and forth. Price incorporates similar wave patterns into taller sculptures, some of which are capped with mouth-like openings. In many of the current sculptures, the openings swell to resemble an egg or elongated dome. These developments have led Price to her newest tall form, which she calls Grace Bulbous Form, characterized by the complex rippling and undulation of the flanges and its assertive scale. She continues to work with monochromatic glazes--here, creamy yellows and pale whites, rich dark browns, and a silvery green "bronze" color--all possessing a distinctive matte surface texture. As in the past, her forms are created with the traditional pinch-and-coil method, beginning with a vessel armature which is spatially articulated using her signature, paper-thin flange elements.

Ursula Morley Price, who resides in southwestern France, has been exhibiting her work internationally for nearly four decades. Her ceramics are found in important public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, the Musée National de Céramique in Sèvres, and numerous other museums throughout Europe and the United States.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; on Saturdays the gallery opens at 11:00 a.m. Mondays are by appointment only.