Ceramics exhibit at Grossmont College’s Hyde Art Gallery, “Cross Currents – Vision in Clay” running until Feb, 20 features the works of Lee Puffer, John Oliver Lewis and Levi Casias. All artists attended opening night while students and admirers poured in and spoke with the artists about inspiration, background, and form.
Ceramics exhibit at Grossmont College’s Hyde Art Gallery, “Cross Currents – Vision in Clay” running until Feb, 20 features the works of Lee Puffer, John Oliver Lewis and Levi Casias. All artists attended opening night while students and admirers poured in and spoke with the artists about inspiration, background, and form.
Puffer has an MFA from SDSU and teaches ceramics at Palomar College. Her pieces on display are gripping—human heads in different, abstract forms of facial expression. Especially in pieces like “Road Rage” which is representative of “trying to investigate the not-so-pretty part of being human, those things that we feel hat we don’t want to admit that we feel.”
What Puffer called the “human experience” is palpable throughout her art, and although she admitted there is some violence, some rage throughout her work, Puffer’s extraordinary sense of observation has an undeniable pull of searching for resolution while viewing agony.
Lewis’ work stood out in with its color and shape.
“I’m interested in the playfulness of sculpture,” he said about his art that has an element of fun, brightness, to it.
He enjoys going between sculpting and painting, which he proves in his use of muted to brilliant colors on edgy pieces, some of which look melted, or stacked on top of themselves.
“I want them to appear as sweet and squishable. A clumsy, goofy, playful object,” he said, adding he finds inspiration in things like candy, landscapes and cartoons. Lewis teaches ceramics at Southwestern College and received his MFA from University of North Texas.
Casias, with an MFA in ceramics, teaches at El Camino High School. His colors are muted and earthy, given the fact that he finds some materials (like lava rock) in rock yards, where he can get organic materials.
His interest is cosmology, as he told the crowd, “origins of the Universe and how we as humans take ideas and find humanity in it.” One of his largest pieces has a split down the middle, inviting many interpretations, likely the idea.
“Describing the indescribable,” is how he explained his art.
“Cross Currents-Vision in Clay” is a diverse exhibit with a curious draw. Each piece is available for a listed price. The exhibit is open from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. every day but February 21 for President’s Day.
Learn more about the exhibit at www.grossmont.edu/artgallery.
