Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years

Voulkos soon rejected the orthodoxy of technique, utility and form, instead pursuing a range of ideas that were entirely new to the medium. He combined wheel throwing with slab-building, traditional glazes with epoxy paint, figuration with abstraction, and made huge ceramic structures with complex internal engineering. He reimagined the vessel form, breaking down its parts and reconfiguring them into a new visual language. He used color and contrast to disrupt the visual integrity of his objects and built monumental sculptures. His works, sometimes created as part of theatrical demonstrations, reflect an intense physicality as well as a sense of immediacy and improvisation.

This exhibition features thirty-one examples from this crucial body of early work, most of which have not been exhibited on the East Coast for four decades. Also included will be three of the artist's rarely seen works in oil on canvas, which help to demonstrate how Voulkos developed his ideas concurrently in painting, sculpture, and pottery.

Both the exhibition and accompanying catalogue provide a specific and detailed account of the breakthrough works from Voulkos's vital period of experimentation.