New gallery showcases art of ceramic experimentation
By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Critic
In its second-story downtown loft space around the corner from River Street, in an area reminiscent of Boston or San Francisco's wharves, Soullenz Studio is like a clandestine speakeasy. Fairly new on the scene, it has high-beamed ceilings, a red brick wall, wood floors and big windows that look out on the river and the traffic below. Owned by photographer Ronen Zilberman, it is a genuine feel-good gallery space that also offers fresh OJ, teas and coffee drinks for purchase.
Through Sept. 30 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 6-9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday Or by appointment Soullenz Studio 186 N. King St., 2nd floor 291-2650
Taste of Clay Tsuchi Aji is an exhibit of ceramic art by Joel Park and Cory Lum.
Taste of Clay Tsuchi Aji
Park's 35 tall, metallic, glazed and raku-fired vessels are beautifully displayed on pedestals draped with obi sashes. Dramatic and calligraphic, they explore a wide-range of attractive surface designs. "Copper Sand Tape Resist," a vessel decorated with resist lines flowing through the metallic flashes of color from a raku firing, is suggestive of a piece of modern jazz choreography.
Lum's 10 enormous platters, tea bowls, bowls, sake cups and vases are interspersed throughout the gallery walls and pedestals and fill four shelves. Working in a variety of clays (stoneware, porcelain and a black clay dug up from Pauoa Valley) and glaze treatments, his body of work illustrates his love of experimentation.
Lum's sagger-firing kiln (much like a covered clay bento with fitted bowls inside) is displayed on a center table. The artist used the blossoms from the African tulip tree as reduction material when the clay was cooling. The result is pure sunshine splendid flashes of bright orange.
Soullenz hosts musical performances. Evening parking is easier.