Curatorial Statement
Exhibition Posted Online: Monday, June 5, 2023 at 10 am MT
Brad Schwieger has been teaching at Ohio University since 1990 and is presently a Professor of Art and Ceramics Area Chairman. Prior to that he was an Associate Professor at Vincennes University in Indiana (1985-1990). Brad received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Utah State University in 1983 and his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1981. Brad has shown his ceramics nationally and internationally. His work has been included in exhibitions throughout the U.S.A., Japan, Korea, Taiwan, England, Germany, Czech Republic, Lithuania and Spain.
For several years my work has been driven by a variety of architectural influences, both man made and forms that I see in nature. These influences have found their way into my functional and non-functional work. My interest in these subjects started years ago as a symposium artist in Europe. In Eastern Europe, I was taken by the eclectic architectural styles of the late 18th and 19th century, from medieval buildings to the Art Nouveau and Neo-classicist styles of the 1930’s. In Barcelona, Spain I was confronted by the amazing work of Antoni Gaudi. His prolific vision is in a class of it’s own. I find an interesting parallel between architecture and pottery. Like architecture, pottery deals with elements of form and structure, interior/exterior, utility or containment, surface detail and adornment. I have attempted to synthesize these interests and produce work that shares the minimal and complex, the miniature and monumental, the formal elements of design, the implied and the possibility of actual function.
-Brad Schwieger