skip to Main Content
Menu

XYZ 4th Virginia McClure Ceramic Biennale

Del Harrow (US), Eliza Au (US), Emre Can (Turkey), Jeanne Quinn (US), Mat Karas (QC)
Guest Curator: Amélie Proulx (QC)

Exhibition: October 1 to 23
Virtual Guided Tour with Curator: Oct. 7 at 5 pm
Art Hive (in-person) with Élise Provencher: Oct. 23, 10:30 am to 1 pm
Workshop (in-person) with Mat Karas: October 9, 11 am to 3 pm ($60 registration required**)
Virtual symposium and artist presentations: online throughout October

Symposium Videos: Visual Arts Centre YouTube Channel

Used for thousands of years, the medium of ceramics has seen the emergence of computer-assisted manufacturing processes in recent decades. It is the development of new languages linked to digital technologies that is the premise of the 4th edition of the Biennale, where the artist and guest curator Amélie Proulx brings together 5 artists – Eliza Au (USA), Emre Can (Turkey), Del Harrow (USA), Mat Karas (QC) and Jeanne Quinn (USA) – who merge traditional skills with digital techniques.

XYZ is a collaboration between the McClure Gallery, Centre Materia, Maison des métiers d’art de Québec (MMAQ), as well as Concordia University’s ceramics program, which will present an online symposium featuring the five Biennale artists throughout the month of October 2021. The exhibition will also be presented at Centre Materia in Quebec City from February 24 to April 3, 2022.

Eliza Au is originally from Vancouver, B.C. in Canada. She received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Artist residencies she has attended include Greenwich House Pottery (NYC, NY), the Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland, OR), and the Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY). She has taught in Canada, the United States, and internationally at various institutions including the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, the Alberta College of Art and Design, Monmouth College, the University of Iowa and the Alfred-CAFA (Central Academy of Fine Arts) Program in Beijing, China. Au is currently an Assistant Professor of Ceramics at the University of North Texas.

Emre Can was born in Bozüyük, Turkey, in 1984. In 2019 he earned his PhD at Anadolu University. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University. Can has also participated in 3-D printing research at Unfold Studio in Antwerp Belgium, and Tethon 3D Studio in Omaha, Nebraska. He was selected as the Emerging Artist of the Year in 2018 by Ceramics Monthly and has won six awards in ceramic competitions, most notably the 74th State Paintings and Sculpture First Prize (2018) and the Blanc de Chine International Ceramic Competition “Excellence Prize” Award, Nice, France (2019). Can’s work has been included in many national and international grou exhibitions, including the Latvian International Ceramic Biennal Martinson Award (2018) International Ceramic Competition Exhibition in Daugavpils Latvia and IV. International Ceramics Triennial UNICUM Exhibition in Ljubljana, Slovenia (2018).

Del Harrow lives with his wife, potter Sanam Emami, and their son, William in Fort Collins, Colorado (US) where he teaches at Colorado State University. His art practice integrates traditional manual and skill-based forming processes with digital fabrication technology. Harrow has been invited to lecture widely on his own work and on the intersection of digital fabrication and craft in contemporary art and education. His work has been exhibited internationally, in venues including the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Korean Ceramics Biennial, the Fondation Bernardaud in Limoges, France, the Denver Art Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and his work is held in numerous permanent collections. He is represented by Haw Contemporary in Kansas City, Missouri and Harvey Preston Gallery in Aspen, Colorado. In 2020 Harrow was a recipient of the prestigious United States Artists Fellowship.

Mat Karas is a ceramic artist from Montréal, Canada where he is Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Concordia University. Karas holds an MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred, and a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. In 2016, Karas was awarded an ArtWorks grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; the funding helped organize a collaborative studio residency at MICA in Baltimore, celebrating and researching the intersection of 19th century American architectural terracotta with contemporary digital tools and techniques. In 2015, he was awarded a one-month studio intensive residency at the Guldagergaard, Denmark, where his research centred around the junction of traditional firing methods with digital fabrication. Karas’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Jeanne Quinn creates theatrical installations that attempt to remind us that everything is ephemeral. She studied art history and baroque music performance at Oberlin College, and earned her MFA in ceramics from the University of Washington. She has exhibited widely, including the Denver Art Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum (USA), the Kemper Museum for Contemporary Art (USA), Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale (Korea), Fondation Bernardaud (France), and Art Basel/ Design Miami (USA). Quinn has been awarded residencies, notably at the MacDowell Colony, the European Ceramic Work Centre, and Zentrum für Keramik Berlin; she has also lectured widely at institutions such as UCLA, Columbia University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Quinn is a professor and chair of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado.

For their financial support of this exhibition, the Visual Arts Centre wishes to thank:

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

Back To Top