2024 Centered in Equity Residency Show

a/d gayle, Maya Pritchard, Monty J.

December 13, 5-9pm, opening reception

Yashar Gallery 276 Greenpoint Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222

Contact: Janine Sopp, Owner/Director Clay Space (718)383-5400
Email: residency@clayspacebk.com

For up to date information, visit our blog

Us

Clay Space ceramic center in Greenpoint, Brooklyn will present an exhibition of its first residency cohort from the 2024 Centered in Equity residency program entitled, US, opening on Friday, December 13 from 5-9pm. The group show will remain on view until December 23 at the Yashar Gallery, 276 Greenpoint Ave., Brooklyn, NY. 

Resident artists include a/d gayle, Maya Pritchard, Monty J will show their current work as a group from December 13-23 with an artist panel discussion on December 14 from 6-7.30pm. Solo artist shows will follow and provide the time and space for each artist to present their individual work and works in progress and allow for a more personal viewing and conversation with each artist.

ABOUT THE RESIDENT ARTISTS

a/d gayle - Artist Statement

a/d’s solo show is January 3-8

a/d gayle (They/Them) is a native New York multidisciplinary artist and educator currently exploring: boundaries, the in between, and the limits of the human mind.

The work in this upcoming exhibition is the result from the exploration of a few related ideas. The patterning of nerikomi and shattering of the clay, along with storytelling in the format of comics, results in these sculptures somewhere between cave paintings and windows.

“Some of these works loosely follow the story of Sam, a character in a novel I’ve been writing for the last few years. These pieces begin mid odyssey with Sam determined to end their own life. However these plans are interrupted upon meeting a shadow, who eventually joins the journey through this flux of: life, time, space, and everything else that makes up our reality. What will happen?”

a/d explains that works made of Clay have a particular relationship with our understanding of time. In these works, sometimes they use up to 8 clay bodies, with some clays having been formed millions of years ago and dug up recently, while others were mixed up in a studio lab yesterday. These relatively thin slabs that end up as the ‘ground’ (in all of its meanings) have been pushed to a limit and like sam, just might break. They contemplate, “Folding clay, folding time and space is what they’re interested in. Can our ‘ground of being’, fissure like from an earthquake?”

Maya Pritchard - Artist Statement

Maya’s solo show is December 30th Opening, 4-7pm-January 3

Maya Pritchard is a native Brooklyn-based multi-media artist and educator whose work explores textures of naturalism and themes of feminine alchemy. Through the practice of hand-building, she creates sculptural forms that focus on functionality and craftsmanship, in this, she aims to create pieces that can be used as tools for personal and collective reflection. 

For these works, Maya comments on themes of ritual feminine identity as symbolic objects, in response to changing reproductive rights and environmental degradation. With much of her approach to technique coming from a place of reverence to the material as a living, breathing collaborator, she illustrates this through the austerity of rhythmic finger marks and asymmetry. 

Beyond her studio practice, Maya is deeply committed to community engagement through art education and healing modalities. She leads workshops that combine pottery techniques with cathartic practices, creating safe spaces for expression and dialogue.

Monty J - Artist Statement

Monty’s solo show is December 26-29 | Gallery Hours 1-6pm

Monty J is on a quest for balance and harmony. As his work expresses itself through multiple materials to find a voice in harmony in combination with multiple materials that would not normally be combined.

Monty J’s work is based on challenging norms with clay, its journey and venture, and a search to confront sculptural ceramic and clay norms. All of the pieces are slightly off balance to create motion and tension. He’s playing with controlled freedom and looking for as many options in between point a and b, seeking to maximize every angle to failure. 

Monty relies on this visual language, always adding to the clay and expanding, seeking multi-dimensionalism and stretching the clay across dimensions. His work insists on giving the viewer an experience with each piece through the balance of mixed medium.

An Artist Talk with the Resident Artists will be moderated by fayola on Saturday, December 14th from 6-7.30pm

fayola  – Artist Statement

fayola is a Black, queer, non-binary ceramicist, educator, community organizer and dj from Jamaica, Queens, currently based in Brooklyn. My ceramic work is a love letter to my identities, a way to bring forth queeribbean history and culture, as situated within the larger African diaspora. The exposed coils that I handroll are a tangible way to make visible the labor of Black women and femmes across history, challenging conventional narratives of misogynoir that attempt to obscure our work and contributions within larger society. 

The Centered in Equity Residency program was created in 2024, stemming from the belief that artists need and deserve to have the ability to access the ceramic facilities, materials and time to exercise this fundamental right.

Created as a braintrust of current members, instructors and staff, we recognized the financial and systemic implications in the ceramic industry that disproportionately affect the lives of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian, Pacific Islander ceramic artists. As such we are currently centering the experiences of Black ceramicists, due to the type of discriminatory practices and beliefs that have historically and systematically limited the experiences of Black ceramicists.

This program is in formation and is developing organically to reflect the needs and requests of the resident artists. Contact residency@clayspacebk.com for more information.