Mimesis: The imitative representation of nature and human behavior in art and literature

(Vocabulary.com)

Mindy Solomon is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Miami of California artist Jay Kvapil.

Inspired by topography, Jay creates surfaces that can only be achieved after years of making. Dedicated to hard work as both an artist and University educator, the fruits of his labor are clearly evident in his oeuvre. Kvapil writes: “Most of the recent pieces allude to landscape, intentionally so. After all, I grew up in Arizona, which is a land of vast desert landscapes, but it is also rich in intimate pictorial spaces found in small rocks and stones. Some of the pieces have an obvious horizon line, giving them a distant landscape, while others depict an intimate landscape through which we travel – whether literally or in our minds –without a specific reference.

In the end, what I make is pottery just pottery. I’m not interested in calling it ceramic art or sculptural ceramics. It’s pottery, plain and simple, because that is the language that it speaks and the history from which it comes, and to whom it speaks. If my work is successful, I like to think that it is kind of conversation with potters that came before me, and the ones who will come after.“

Trained as a master potter in Japan, Kvapil also finds inspiration in the simple elegant forms that were emblematic of the mid-century modern period. Artists like James Lovera, and Gertrud and Otto Natzler paved the way with their beautifully articulated minimalist vessels and volcanic surfaces. Kvapil’s works are an homage to the genre and continue to prove that good design is timeless.

Informed by geographical surfaces, modernist design, Japanese pottery and the alchemy of his glaze confections, Jay Kvapil brings high craft and contemporary art together.