The MSSU Spiva Gallery is pleased to host a solo exhibition by artist JSTN CLMN. The show will run from January 23- February 21, 2024. The artist talk will be held in Corley Auditorium on February 8 at 6 PM with a reception to follow at 7 PM. You can also join the talk on Zoom: https://mssu-edu.zoom.us/j/95444978214?pwd=N3VmL3FzS0MwczZPQ3R4Zm1TR1BnQT09
Passcode: 206814
“In We Buy Houses” JSTN CLMN presents an ongoing body of work titled Raised Here; Razed Here, that investigates housing insecurity and issues of gentrification through a selective assessment of material and visual language of a neighborhood in transition, in economic flux and tension of decline and development. In assessing the environment, Clmn asks, “How can the material and aesthetic effects of looking at crumbling buildings and homes in disrepair be translated into ceramic material and vessel form?
In these works, Clmn offers reflections of growing up in a city, a black neighborhood, a rust belt city, or
a midwestern town and making observations of the aesthetics of the homes and buildings and the tensions of how homes are valued, devalued, maintained, or erased. These works have a sensitivity and nostalgia, a value for the people, places, culture, and community. In Clmn’s framework, a vacant single or multiunit family dwelling is a cache of personal memory and a commodity (bought, sold, fixed up, or flattened). Its physical form, cracked foundations, missing siding, peeling wallpaper, eviction notices, and broken water pipes exhibit signs of economic and municipal forces.
Many of these works begin by working in porcelain and stoneware but also involve collecting found ceramic objects (brick parts, drainage pipes, tile) and incorporating printing methods using ceramic glaze mediums. In these works, Clmn synthesizes the ceramics vessel forms with domestic architecture, the street, and the neighborhood, incorporating visual and material signs of disrepair, deferred maintenance, and or restoration. The works resulted in broken and fixed porcelain vessels printed with flowers and Tyvek logos, glazed and fired brick sherd assemblage and other ceramic found objects manipulated and fired.
Jstn CLmn is from Pittsburgh, Pa and currently lives in Columbus, Ohio. He earned his BFA in
ceramics from RISD and MFA from the University of Delaware. Clmn got his entrance to working in the arts through pottery and using clay and ceramics and over time developed his approach to working in ceramics with a conceptual understanding craft. Currently Clmn lives in Columbus, Ohio and is an assistant professor in the Studio Art program at Denison University.
Clmn has recently exhibited work at the Crocker Museum (Sacramento Ca), the Michell and Donald D’Amour Museum of fine arts (Springfield, Ma) and the Northern Clay Center (Minneapolis, MN) with the traveling exhibition titled A Gathering. IN 2022 Clmn’s work was published in the book Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artist, written and edited by donald clark and Chotsani Elaine Dean.
