Programs

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Annabeth Rosen (b. 1957)Bunny, 2011Fired and glazed ceramic, steel stands, casters, baling wire46 x 32 x 24 in.Courtesy of artist and P*P*O*W Gallery Annabeth Rosen’s heaped and piled ceramic sculptures are informed by a painterly sensibility. The fragility of each individual ceramic form is counterpoised by steel wire and a metal armature that holds these individual pieces together or aloft. Both Bunny and Bird incorporate small upright metal tables designed by Rosen. The resulting compositions are compelling – playful, but also strong and resilient.  Her process expresses the primacy of systems, using materials…

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Nathan Lynch (b. 1974)Blacknightbowl, 2023Glazed ceramic12 x 14 x 8 in.Courtesy of the artistPhoto: © 2024, John Janca, all rights reserved Commissioned by Montalvo’s Lucas Artists Program, Nathan Lynch’s A Place for Meeting Strangers is both a functional sculpture (a ceramic drinking fountain) and a social prompt. It invites two people to look each other in the eye and drink together, spurring a charmingly awkward moment of public intimacy and connection. In an era saturated with discord, distortion, and division, it becomes a starting place for community conversations.  A throughline in Lynch’s work…

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Woody De Othello (b. 1991)seeing both sides, 2024 (cast 2025)Patinated bronze84 x 41-7/8 x 45-7/8 in.Collection of Montalvo Arts Center, Gift of the Lipman Family FoundationPhoto by Airyka Rockefeller seeing both sides explores the idea of balance, what exists at the intersection of choice, and how we can be in tune with change. After conceiving a figure that embodies these concepts, Othello constructed a small clay model (or maquette) for the eventual larger-than-life bronze sculpture that was recently gifted to Montalvo by the Lipman Family Foundation. This maquette was a critical and necessary…

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Linda Nguyen Lopez (b. 1981)Neighborhood Ombre Dust Furry, 2025Pigmented stoneware and glaze33 1/2 x 25 x 25 in.Courtesy of the artist and Mindy Solomon Gallery Lopez confronts the overlooked and dismissed through her "dust furry" sculptures—forms that exist at the intersection of the familiar and fantastical. These beings emerge from her fascination with the accumulated detritus of daily life, especially the gentle gatherings of dust that collect in corners and under furniture, typically swept away without consideration.    Her dust furries represent a re-focusing and reclamation of the ignored. They are manifestations of…

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Elisa D'Arrigo (b. 1953)Googler 1, 2018Glazed Ceramic8 x 8 x 7-1/2 in.Courtesy of the artist and Patricia Sweetow Gallery Delightfully adorned in textures, patterns, and luminous glazes of various hues, D’Arrigo’s diminutive ceramic works make their presence emphatically felt despite their size. Their shapes are intriguing and marvelously eccentric. D’Arrigo’s improvisational approach reflects her interest in exploring humor and fluid gesture. With playful titles such as Googler, Feeler, and From Drip to Bump, her abstract forms are purposefully ambiguous.   As shape-shifters, these works mimic various biomorphic forms in nature, yet resist precise identification.…

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Cathy Lu (b. 1984)Untitled (Peach Incense Holder), 2021Glazed stoneware, joss sticks34 x 32 x 20 in.Courtesy of the artistPhoto by Paul Gallo Peaches are a favorite subject and recurring motif of the artist – usually with a twist. In Lu’s hands, a peach may be studded with seed pods and incense sticks; partial figures; heads; or fingernails. In every instance, they are the very embodiment of the strange and unexpected, while also being delightfully subversive. What assumptions are being deconstructed by Lu in these works?  Peaches are a common symbol in Chinese culture…

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Niki Ford (b. 1974)Child on High, 2025Stoneware, mason stain, underglaze, glaze,tung oil, epoxy, spar varnish, rebar and concrete base47 in. x 16 in. x 16 in.Courtesy of the artistPhoto by Paul Gallo Niki Ford, a Los Angeles-based artist, befriends the otherworldly through their richly pigmented and hyper-tactile stoneware sculptures. During the building process, Ford works intuitively, as if receiving a kind of download – watching the form emerge and unfold, rather than consciously constructing it. This quiet exchange between artist and object gives rise to the final form, allowing motifs, textures, colors, and…

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Kristiana Chan 莊 禮 恩 (b. 1993)the stone in your mouth (en/snarled), 2024Hand-built stoneware, crocheted chain, foraged barnacle, acrylic tubingCourtesy of the artistPhoto by Paul Gallo The intertidal zone is a landscape marked by constant and extreme change, whose inhabitants have uniquely adapted to not only withstand, but thrive in such conditions. Chan considers histories of oceanic extraction and our relationship to living resources, believing that the ocean’s intertidal organisms are oracles which guide our understanding of what longevity, survival, and endurance can look like.   What wisdom, memories, and technologies are held within…

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Ashwini Bhat (b. 1980)AGNIJA, Born of Fire, 2023Glazed ceramic84 x 36 x 16 in.Collection of Starworks, NCPhoto by Chris Gallaway Inspired by the cathedral-like termite mounds frequently seen throughout Southern India, artist Ashwini Bhat was invited to create this hybrid, biomorphic sculpture using local wild clay as a part of Firefest 2023 at Starworks, in North Carolina.  To this day in Southern India, the termite mounds, which have chimney-like structures resembling ancient pottery kilns, are worshipped as the dwellings of the serpent deities. In this process, the termite mounds themselves become the…