BEN MEDANSKY
LA based ceramicist Ben Medansky‘s clay creations are functional objet d’art. Crude beauties, their rudimentary shapes in raw materials and humorous poses, are thoughtful in scale and composition.
Speckled buff clay underlies all his pieces, which he describes as “groggy, sandy, clay”; it peeks through the glaze like coffee grains. It’s this honest base fabric, that somehow lends itself to the muted earthenware from the 1970’s, that in Medansky’s hands becomes modern.
Unexpected collision of forms set Medansky’s ceramics apart. Fat fins protrude from familiar shapes in ‘Vessel / Astrid’, ‘Vessel / Astra’ and ‘Filter’. While ‘Vessel / Rocco’ and ‘Vessel / Blue Pyrite’ have a magnetic character collecting blue cubes and other abstract objects and carefully tipping each end in glaze.
Although Ben Medansky seems young in years he has worked for some big names, like Memphis great Peter Shire, and contemporaries, Anthony Pearson and the Haas Brothers.
Credits: Ben Medansky
