Untitled

Anna-Bella Papp

2016 · Ceramic · Modern and Contemporary Art

Papp works solely in the medium of clay. Forming this humble material into rectangular tablets, the artist builds up or carves out designs on their surfaces. Papp will often work on many reliefs at once, taking advantage of the extended malleability of her medium to add and subtract over time. She then fires the resulting plaques in a kiln but leaves the clay unglazed, allowing its naturally variant tone to remain visible. Their architectural, geometric forms resonate not only with many examples of modernist practice—relief sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, Hans Arp, or Barbara Hepworth come to mind, for example; but they also evoke millennia of use of this ancient medium of clay around the Museum.

Artist

Anna-Bella Papp

Date

2016

Medium

Ceramic

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Purchase, Christian Keesee Gift, 2017