Residence VI: A Showcase of Artists from New Harmony Clay Project
Caro Burks, Donna Causland, Katie Chandler, Pennie Ebsen, Daeun Lim, Sarah McIntosh, Natalie Nicholson, Eva Polzer, Mona Seno
April 30 – June 11, 2022
New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art (NHGCA) presents the group exhibition Residence VI April 30 through June 11. The exhibition features works by Caro Burks, Donna Causland, Katie Chandler, Pennie Ebsen, Daeun Lim, Sarah McIntosh, Natalie Nicholson, Eva Polzer, and Mona Martinez Seno.
Residence VI features ceramic works by recent residents of New Harmony Clay Project. Gallery hours are 10am–5pm Central, Tuesday – Saturday.
Caro Burks uses mixed-media sculpture and installation to explore themes of sentimentality, storytelling, and symbolism in decorative culture. Burks received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2015, held a post baccalaureate position at the University of Arkansas from 2015-2017, and received her MFA from Southern Illinois University in the Spring of 2020. She has been awarded residencies at Penland School of Crafts, Anderson Ranch Arts Center and is currently the long-term resident at the New Harmony Clay Project. Burks has participated in juried, and two-person shows nationally, and her solo exhibition BITTER AND SOUR opened at SHAG Space in Charlotte, NC in 2021
Donna Causland is a ceramic artist living in Silverthorne, Colorado. Residing at 9,000 feet above sea level, she is surrounded by the beauty and wildflowers that inspire her work. Causland graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1977 with a BFA in Ceramics. Since then she has lived all over the US from Seattle, WA to Dunedin, FL, all the while cultivating her ceramic knowledge. In addition to her residency at the New Harmony Clay Project in New Harmony, Indiana, Causland recently completed a two-month residency with The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China. She exhibits her work annually at the Vail Farmer's Market & Art Show and the Aspen Saturday Market every weekend from mid-June to October.
Katie Chandler currently resides in Evansville, Indiana. She graduated from the University of Southern Indiana in 2007 receiving a Bachelor of Science with a concentration in Ceramics. Despite working full- time since graduation, Chandler has always found creative ways to keep her hands in clay. Through continued education at USI, summer programs at the New Harmony Clay Project, and small projects at home, Chandler has continued to hone her skills through the years. Chandler has recently finalized plans to build her own ceramics studio on her property in Evansville, with construction planned to begin in 2022. Consistent access to a dedicated workspace will allow Chandler to further explore and refine herself as an artist in the years to come.
Pennie Ebsen is an artist/educator living and working in Oak Park IL. She came to clay reluctantly, and embraced it immediately on experiencing its transformational qualities. As a functional potter, Ebsen aims to enhance the gathering around the family table with comfortable and beautiful dinnerware, serving dishes, and flower vases. As an educator, Ebsen’s goals are for her students to successfully create in clay in a supportive classroom community. Her goals have been exceeded as she has watched her students win awards, start their own pottery businesses and begin teaching careers. The residency at the New Harmony Clay Project has offered Ebsen time and space to create both successfully and not so successfully, to experiment with sculptural ideas while offering a foray into salt firing with her fellow residents.
Daeun Lim work explores the function in ceramics to define the culture of utility; further forging a path beyond our current understanding of functionality. She was born in Busan, South Korea, in 1992 and lives and works in Seoul, South Korea. She received her MFA in Ceramic Art at Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul, South Korea in 2019, and her BFA in Ceramic Art, Ewha Woman’s University in 2016. She has exhibited her work globally in South Korea, Germany and Romania, and in 2019, she won the Young Artist Award in the Cluj Ceramic Biennale in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Also, she was featured as a Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist (2021). Lim has completed Artist Residencies at Clayarch Gimhae Museum, Gimhae, South Korea (2019); New Harmony Clay Project, New Harmony, IN, (2021); Arquetopia Ceramics Residency, Puebla, Mexico (2021); and Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, Maryland (2022).
Sarah McIntosh is a ceramic artist originally from Marion, Indiana, currently living in Bloomington, Indiana. In 2020, she obtained her BFA degree in ceramics and a minor in art history from Indiana University where she was awarded Nick's English Hut Ceramics Award and Genia and Max Tanner Scholarship. McIntosh’s work is inspired by her interest in macabre, body horror media which she intersects with the notion of human interrelation. These impulses thrive in her work most prominently in her hand-pinched flora that propagates in her work.
Natalie Nicholson received her BFA - Ceramics from The University of Iowa in 2019. She was the 2019 Anonymous Artist Studio Fellow at Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Nicholson coordinated and instructed clay classes for youth at the Seward Cafe Free Space in Minneapolis. She has exhibited work around the Midwest and internationally.
Eva Polzer was raised in Perry, Ohio. They graduated with an AA, with a focus in psychology, from LCC and then transferred to Kent State University where they graduated summa cum laude with a BFA in ceramics and sculpture. Shortly after graduation, Eva was an artist in residence at NHCP. Eva has shown in multiple group exhibitions in Ohio and Indiana, winning multiple awards such as Best in Show and the ARTshop award. Eva is a freelance artist; they work as a gallery liaison and art handler for Curated Storefront; and as a collections management assistant for Hieronymus Objects, a private collection, in Akron, Ohio.
Mona Martinez Seno has been playing with clay since she was fourteen years old growing up in Tokyo, Japan. She has an MFA in Sculpture from the Tyler School of Art, and loves to make installation art too (but clay was her first love). She currently teaches Ceramics and Sculpture at Northfield Mount Hermon School, after seven years at Darrow School, and has been teaching at the high school level in boarding schools since 2004.
New Harmony Clay Project (NHCP) is an artist residency and educational center located at the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Ceramic Studio in historic New Harmony, IN. NHCP fosters an environment that supports the investigation of new ideas and work in the ceramic arts. It is an organization under the New Harmony Artist Guild, a non-profit 501(c)3, that serves as an incubator for nurturing the arts. NHCP is a rural residency program, supported by the Efroymson Family Fund, Greater Houston Community Foundation, Lenny and Anne Dowhie Trusts, and Robert Lee Blaffer Foundation. The goal is to encourage emerging and professional visual artists/educators in ceramics by giving them quiet space and the time to develop a new body of work.
This exhibition is made possible in part by the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana, and the Indiana Arts Commission, which receives support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.