Artist: Judith Ernst | Location: Chapel Hill, NC
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Artist: Judith Ernst | Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Chapel Hill, NC
Born in the Northwest, Judith Ernst studied studio art and political science at Stanford. Living in South Asia and being influenced by art from that region, she wanted to create art that had meaning, so she illustrated books. In 2001 while visiting the Gulbenkenian Museum in Lisbon, she viewed the extensive collection of 17th-Century Iznik pottery. The overwhelming beauty of this collection suggested that “perhaps beauty is enough.” Returning home, she began learning ceramics, but she found that the vessel form suggested meaning, an ancient resonance.
Her work as a ceramist has focused on the interplay of traditional forms and sculptural expression. She uses the vessel form conceptually, because vessels have an inside, an inner dimension, a presence connected to their mysterious inner space. In the ancient world, vessels were used functionally, but also metaphorically in ritual and literature, employing some of these same ideas of interiority. Looking back to these antecedents, she treats the metaphor of the inner as a resonant subject matter for non-functional ceramic art pieces. Implied are the dichotomies between the inner and outer, the hidden and the seen, the created world and the ineffable mystery. Cutting through the wall and changing the angles of the various connecting planes in her complex patterns, she creates deep relief, a dynamic movement that leads the eye to the inside of the vessel, opening a dialogue between the vessel’s outer planes and inner spaces.