Of Many at Maymont’s Robins Nature Center presented contemporary ceramic sculpture by six artists during the 58th annual NCECA conference in Richmond.
The exhibition responded to the conference theme of “coalescence” by focusing on practices that combine separate elements into larger, transformed structures.
Six approaches to ceramic accumulation
The participating artists were Grace Potter, Alice Walton, S. Lantz, Jess Riva Cooper, Lindsay Pichaske and Amanda Salov.
They represented different geographic contexts, from Northern California and Northwest Arkansas to St. Louis, Toronto, Seattle and the English countryside.
Across the exhibition, ceramics were treated not simply as individual vessels or isolated objects but as materials capable of building complex forms through repetition, combination and accumulated gestures.
Coalescence as process
The title Of Many reflected the exhibition’s interest in transformation through assembly.
Separate components could retain their individual presence while contributing to a larger sculptural whole.
That principle connected the work directly with the wider NCECA theme and highlighted approaches that push beyond conventional expectations of ceramic form.
Installed within a nature centre, the exhibition also placed these constructed, accumulated objects in a setting already concerned with systems, environments and relationships between individual parts.