Carmen D’Apollonio investigates the entire spectrum from abstraction to figuration through her practice. Self-taught in the ceramics discipline, D’Apollonio’s approach to her acclaimed sculptural lighting and vessels celebrates the fusion of craftsmanship with functionality.
D'Apollonio’s process begins with sketching, which she then translates into clay and bronze – evolving the three-dimensional form as she goes. Humorous and playful sculptures are then created that turn the exhibition space into a surrealist landscape. These works – mostly lamps and vessels – have grown in size gradually and are undoubtedly creature-like. They invite the audience and one another to interact within the exhibition space by offering suggestive narrative fragments and titles charged with different emotions, ranging from the comic to the melancholic. In this context D’Apollonio describes her work as “simple; it often gives way to humor. As if clay had its way of being, its own personality.” The pieces also fuse craftsmanship with functionality, while highlighting the artist’s tongue-in-cheek sensibility and her recent experiments with gesture and materiality. Making these ceramics is like an alchemical transformation that combines control as well as unpredictability. This tension is part of her artistic process that continues to push the boundaries between utilitarian object and work of art.
Born 1973 in Zurich, Switzerland, D’Apollonio previously worked as an art director for short films and commercials in the mid-nineties. In 1996, she started as an assistant for the artist Urs Fischer in Berlin and New York, she learned building sculptures with different materials which led the way for her own practice that she began in 2014 when she established her studio in Los Angeles where she lives and works.