Husk Series #4 (white)

About Husk Series #4 (white)

This contemporary ceramic piece was handmade by Steven Heinemann.

A gifted and technically brilliant artist, the ceramic artwork of Steven Heinemann has pushed the boundaries of ceramic art and afforded him international acclaim.
This series of organic-shaped sculptural pieces was made by hand using clay in a special process that involves the application of liquid clay (slip). The rounded exterior skin or ‘husk’ of the piece has an inner form or ‘seed’. The exterior skin naturally cracks as it dries and shrinks around the inside form. The white matte exterior features a delicate floral lace design with a textured weave pattern on the top of the interior seed. In nature, the husk or chaff is the protective coating of a seed.

“This series is unlike many I’ve done in that it completely originates on the page, as an idea that occurred while drawing. It can also be dated fairly specifically, to spring of 1977, while working with drawing teacher and mentor Paul Kipps.” Steven Heinemann

“In 1999, a contemporary of Heinemann’s, UK-based potter and author Edmund de Waal, in his book Design Sourcebooks: Ceramics, coined the term, “the new austerity’ as a counterpart to contemporary minimalist sculpture. I sense that Heinemann’s aesthetic compass is guided by this new austerity.
Certainly, he points to the early modernists, Hans Coper and Lucie Rie, whom he discovered in books as a teenager, as having shaped his drive for minimalist line and unadorned form.” Heidi McKenzie, Toronto Ceramicist

Steven Heinemann earned an MFA from Alfred University, NY, in 1983 and has taught in Canada and the US. Since his first solo exhibition in 1982 at the Ontario Crafts Council, he has exhibited continuously. Heinemann’s work is held in museums the world over. He has received many national and international awards including the Saidye Bronfman Award, Canada’s highest recognition of achievement in contemporary craft.