Roger Herman “Keramik”

Feuer/Mesler

[Image: Roger Herman “TBT" (2016) Ceramic 19 x 8 in.]

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Feuer/Mesler presents an exhibition of ceramic work by Roger Herman.

This body of work rejects traditional ideas of pottery by embracing a duality of forces and employing opposing ideas in each piece: intention & chance, painting & sculpture, figuration & abstraction. A trained painter and esteemed UCLA professor, Herman has created his own idiosyncratic world where these dualities don’t compete but elevate and continue the discussion of what it means to make art in this century.

This interaction between painting and ceramics asserts that painting doesn’t always have to happen on a canvas, or even a flat surface. Herman began his ceramic work after he had already established his painting practice, and each mode of art making informs the other equally. The wax resistance & underglazing techniques that he employs clearly recall gestural figuration; they are never uniform or simply decorative like tableware. Every vessel asserts their individuality and each piece stands alone—some are pure abstraction, exaltations of color; others are clearly faces or bodily forms. At times these figures can recall both Japanese manga and the etchings of the 15th century master draughtsman Hans Baldung Grien, a student of Dürer whose initials Herman will sometimes incorporate into the composition. A third group of vessels slip in and out of referential mark making and recall the automatic mark making of surrealists, with a nod to the anti-paintings of Miro. Making no effort to hide the presence of the artist’s hand, paint strokes can feel expressionist and emotional. The artist manages to achieve a feeling of intentionality while at the same time emphasizing chance and the subconscious mind. The physical forms extend the presence of the artist’s hand—they are asymmetrical, lopsided and imperfect, making them feel highly personal.

Roger Herman was born in Saarbrücken, Germany and received his MFA from Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe in 1975. Solo exhibitions include Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles; George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco; Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles; Ace Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles and New York; Larry Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles; the Santa Monica Museum of Art; Museo del Arte Contemporana, Mexico City; and LACMA; among others. His work is included in many public and private collections including the Denver Art Museum; the Hammer Museum,; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museo del Arte Contemporanea, Mexico City; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. He currently lives in Los Angeles and is the head of the Painting Department at UCLA.