Caroline Earley is currently based in the United States after a period of working and teaching in New Zealand. Her practice is grounded in the vessel tradition and emphasizes, and sometimes reverses, the relationship between form and function through the shifting interplay of form, appendage and surface. Caroline’s recent exhibitions include a solo show at Object Space, Auckland, New Zealand, Object and Sculpture at Sanderson Contemporary Art, Auckland New Zealand  and Ink and Clay 37, Pomona, CA. Her work was also included in the Gyeonggi International CeraMIX Biennale 2011 in the Republic of Korea.

Artist Statement

My vessels are formal explorations where form, vestigial appendages and arrangements are combined to create conversations within each form and between multiple forms. I want the works to occupy an undefined space between reductive minimalist geometry and curvilinear baroque exaggeration. Vestigial appendages protrude from multi-part forms, investigating proportional relationships and the unsettled state between balance and imbalance.

Thrown and altered vessels, based on biomorphic forms, are hybridized samplings of pots, the body, mutations, self-replicating or dysfunctional systems. Thrown vessels are closed, assembled and arranged to create groups with the potential to expand or perhaps recombine and continually re – make the configuration, presenting an ever – expanding potentiality.

white vase
ceramic
7.25″ x 3.5″ x 3.5″ (dimensions variable)