2024 Cultivating Community | https://nceca.net/2024-cultivating-community

Engage with the 2024 NCECA Emerging Artists! Explore the compelling work of Erika NJ Allen, Magdolene Dykstra, Gloria Jue-Youn Han, Robert King, Teddy Osei, and Isaac Scott—in this insightful video presentation from the Coalescence Conference in Richmond, Virginia. 

Erika NJ Allen’s work embodies resilience, a healing diet, and newfound political awareness. From a hysterectomy during her time as a non-traditional BFA student to wrist injuries in graduate school, molded into tangible art. Clay is a vehicle that captures her experiences while innovating produce based glazes, merging art with identity, and propelling towards sustainable practices by pushing boundaries in ceramics.

Magdolene Dykstra works in sculpture, installation, and mark-making. Dykstra’s practice explores the tension between individuality and collectivity, visibility and anonymity, impermanence, and the embedded potential for transformation. Her methodology centers around the accumulation of small components within intricate ecosystems that embody a relationship with the Earth, its forms, and processes.

Gloria Jue-Youn Han complicates notions of what is traditional and contemporary and who gets to participate in either category. She studies Korean celadon ceramics as a case study of how traditions survive and evolve through diasporic peoples. Through craft, Han expresses devotion and love as an emerging artist and knowledge keeper. 

Robert King is a self-taught potter who respectfully collaborates with wild clay, found rocks, minerals, sand, and wood ash, aiming to craft pottery that expresses the organic and natural environment where these materials have rested for millennia. He describes his current work as “a love letter to the high desert”.

Teddy Osei delves into the concept of delineating borders and the complex power dynamics that lie beneath. He tackles the implications of traversing these boundaries and the subsequent transformation that follows. He crafts ceramic sculptural vessels that defy limitations, weaving a compelling narrative that echoes his cultural odyssey.

Isaac Scott is a ceramic artist and photographer from Madison, Wisconsin, who is currently living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Scott received his MFA in Ceramic Art at Tyler School of Art and Architecture in 2021.