The North West Ceramics Foundation is pleased to announce their next Speakers Series on Sunday, April 6, 2025, at 1pm PST featuring Eliza Au. The presentation is free and open to all. It will take place on Zoom, and registration is required. Please see here or below for information as how to register.

I am motivated to create this work as I find elegance, beauty and balance within mathematical relationships and find this works well with the technical challenges of clay. I view my process as similar to solving a mathematical equation; I gain satisfaction from discovering new pathways or proofs to new aesthetic experiences. . . . Our epoch is the same as all other epochs before us, using current technology to re-interpret ornament that has come before us and modify their meanings to fit our own purpose. The skeleton may act as a metaphor for ornament; it serves as the backbone of our identity and through abstraction it presents coded meanings of cultural production and values. Eliza Au

Eliza Au

Eliza Au earned her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. She has shown her work, which uses digital fabrication techniques, nationally and internationally, including at: the Appalachian Center for Craft (Smithville, TN; 2021); the Taiwan Ceramic Biennale, (New Tapei City, Taiwan; 2020), and the Korean International Ceramic Biennale (Icheon, Korea, 2019). She has attended residencies at the European Ceramic Work Center (Hertogenbosch, NL), the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (Helena, MT), and Greenwich House Pottery. In 2020, she received an Award of Excellence during the Chrysalis Competition held by the James Renwick Alliance, and, in 2022, she received a McKnight Artist Fellowship to attend a residency at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN. Her work is in several permanent collections including the Everson Museum of Art and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Originally from Vancouver, Au is currently based out of Texas, where she is an Assistant Professor of Ceramics at the University of North Texas.

Eliza Au, Sanctuary, 2022, Installed at Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, Cone 6 Stoneware and Hardware, 10 x 10 x 8 feet, Photo: John Joe.

Au’s talk, “The Architecture of Solace” will discuss the influence of architecture and pattern in sacred spaces on her work. She is interested in how sacred spaces facilitate and fulfill the human need for meaning and understanding of the unknown through the use of pattern and ornamentation. Using 3D printing and mold-making techniques, she creates lattice forms, which she assembles into lattice-like ceramic objects. Her sculptures allude to architectural ornamentation in sacred spaces such as cathedrals, temples, and mosques. Through her work, she strives to convey to the viewer a sense of contemplation and solitude.

Please join us for this exciting and important talk by Eliza Au. The talk will take place on Sunday, April 6, 2025 at 1pm PST. All are welcome, but registering is required. To register, please see here. We look forward to seeing you there!

For more on Eliza Au, please see her website here.

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