Artist: Joshua Hebbert
Joshua Hebbert, DENMARK
I like exploring ironies. My studio acts as a space for me to both escape and explore the world. The objects and installations that I create pull on personal, social, and constructed symbols. I remove them from direct, cultured meaning. I weave them together to create a new fabric that is at once personal and universal. It serves as a critical look at the way knowledge is acculturated and understood.
In my recent body of work, I play with the irony of searching the cosmos in order to get to know oneself. Linking our personal paths to celestial clockwork involves a simultaneous search of interior and exterior galaxies. We make shapes out of the stars. Studying the constellations becomes a way of navigating our inner selves; Where were the celestial bodies on the date and time of your birth? Where are they (and you) now?
My slip cast vessels are a process-oriented exploration of interior and exterior spaces. Through casting the interior of the vessels, the forms of these objects reveal themselves. Forms diminish as I recast the interior voids. I also expand the forms by adding layers to the prototypes and making new molds. The textural histories of the objects are hidden beneath new coats of materials. This expansion and collapse of form creates a family of objects that grow and shrink. They gaze in while gazing out.
Originally from rural western Nebraska, Joshua Hebbert now lives in Bornholm, Denmark, where he is the ceramic technician for the Royal Danish Academy. He earned his BFA at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska and his MFA from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Before relocating to Denmark, he spent six years in Philadelphia, PA where he was a resident at The Clay Studio and taught at a variety of institutions, including the Maryland Institute College of Art. Hebbert’s ceramic practice is centered in experimentation and mold making as a generative process to create slip cast vessels with organically mottled colors. His process includes layering colored slips in plaster molds to reflect and play with different moments of interior and exterior space. After taking slip cast pots out of their molds, Hebbert carves off the outer layer, unearthing unpredictable shapes and patterns. He poetically likens this process to constellations becoming visible in the night sky–shapes shift and transform as more layers are revealed.
Education:
Masters of Fine Arts, 2012-2014
• University of Colorado at Boulder Post-Baccalaureate Studies, 2010-2012 • University of Wisconsin at Madison Bachelor of Fine Arts, 2005-2009
• Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska
Studio:
The Royal Danish Academy, Nexø, Denmark • Ceramics Specialist, 2021-present
Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD • Interim Ceramic Studio Manager, Spring 2021
The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
• Resident Artist, 2015-2020
Brian Giniewski Studios, LLC. Philadelphia, PA • Production Manager, 2018-2020
BDDW, Philadelphia, PA
• Studio Assistant 2015-2018
UC Boulder
• Materials Manager, 2012-2013
Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts,
Newcastle, ME
• Summer Studio Staff , 2009-2010
Teaching:
Maryland Institute College of Art,
Baltimore, MD
• Ceramics 200, The Handbuilt Form; Ce ramics 201, Wheel Throwing; Ceramics 300, Cast Ceramics; First Year Experience, Prototype/Situate/Fabricate
The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
• Studio Sampler, Handbuilding, Wheel Throwing I and II
University of Colorado—Boulder
• Graduate Part Time Instructor: Founda tions 1010 (Fall 2013), Foundations 1020 (Spring 2014),
• Instructor of Record: Ceramics for Non-Majors Fall 2014)
Awards and Professional:
• Adjunct Faculty Professional Development Grant Maryland Institute College of Art
• Juror’s Selection, Runner-Up, Au Currant, King Exhibition, University of Colorado, Boulder • Graduate Professional Development Award, Department of Art and Art History, University of Colorado, Boulder
• Jeff Guido Prize, The Marge Brown Kalodner Grad uate Student Exhibition, The Clay Studio, Philadel phia, PA
Selected Exhibitions:
2022 (upcoming)
• Yunomi Invitational, ClayAKAR, Iowa City, IA • American Pottery Festival, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN
• VESSELS, Antler Gallery, Portland, OR
2020
• Stargazing (Solo), The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
2019
• Storage to Studio, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
• Everyday Ordinary, Exposition Hall, NCECA, Min neapolis, Minnesota
2018
• Long Term Residents, Goggleworks, Reading, PA • Pillow Talk, The Kitchen Table Gallery, Philadel phia, PA
• Shadow Casting, Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, PA 2017
• No Way (Solo) Sykes Gallery, Millersville, PA • Former Love Letters (Solo) The Blue House Gal lery, Dayton, OH
• FAKE ART Forum Gallery, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfi eld Hills, MI
2016
• Sometimes, Always, Never, Gravity Gallery, North Adams, MA and Carroll House Gallery, Keene, NH • Now & Then, Kansas City Museum, Kansas City, MO
2013
• Skal Vi Smutte, Bruuns Gallery, Skaelskor, Denmark