John Natsoulas Gallery

Exhibition Dates: January 2nd-February 2nd, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 5, 7pm-9pm

The John Natsoulas Center for the Arts proudly presents its very first Annual Trompe L'Oeil Ceramic Artists Exhibition, one of the most rare and exuberant survey shows of contemporary trompe l'oeil ceramic artists in the United States.

The French term Trompe L'Oeil literally means "deception of the eye". It is a painting that utilizes the knowledge of perspective and games of light and dark to create, if only for a moment, the illusion of something that in reality it does not exist. These illusions, whether serious or playful, allow the viewer to perceive art and nature through a different perspective. In the 1960’s, distinguished ceramic artists such as Marilyn Levine, Richard Shaw and Victor Spinski began further experimenting with Trompe L’Oeil in ceramics by transforming clay into leather, metal, wood, plastic, glass or steel and creating found objects, banal if by themselves but gaining significance and intrigue when combined with other quotidian clay-created found objects.

Richard Shaw has pioneered the Trompe L'Oeil style for many generations, developing an astonishing array of techniques including perfectly cast porcelain objects and overglaze transfer decals. By combining the commonplace with the whimsical, the humorous with the mundane, Shaw captures the poetic and the surreal with the sensibility of a comedian.

Marilyn Levine’s idealized concept of developing holds an authentic sculptural expression, which enabled her to create sculpture that resulted in a paradoxical tension and implied subjectivity found in surrealism. Her works encapsulate the aesthetic of the beautiful, which is grounded in her meticulous attention to surface and mastery of the techniques of firing and glazing.

Victor Spinski has been considered the ultimate founder of the Trompe L'Oeil tradition and completed the tradition by demonstrating both a sense of humor and technical mastery of the media.

The Trompe L’Oeil movement has recently been escalating in popularity throughout the country as new breeds of artists mentored by Richard Shaw and Victor Spinski are gaining recognition through their artwork.

Malia Landis is an exemplary new generation artist, a recent Humboldt State University graduate who manages to mold clay into natural elements such as abalone shells, with the intention not to copy nature but to complement it with the use of glaze and texture.

The Trompe L’Oeil Survey Exhibition will also include renowned artists Sylvia Hyman, Steve Hansen, Emma Luna, Rebecca Catterall, Paul Dresang, Xiaoping Luo, Helen Key-Morgan, Linda Fitz Gibbon, Cameron Crawford, Dennis Mitchell, Claudia Tarantino, Shalene Valenzuela and Justin Mitman. We invite any groups or schools to attend this extraordinary exhibition, as we offer a series of special tours for those who would like to come.