ARTIST STATEMENT

My motivation is love. 

The love I have for those experiencing the world alongside me completely encompasses the way I create and what I create. My art reflects the diversity and complexity of life, forcing viewers to contemplate and connect with their own humanity. Each piece serves as a testament to our collective journey, emphasizing the importance of empathy and understanding in a world that is often difficult to navigate.

CV

Matt Brophy grew up in New England and now lives in Anderson, SC. He began making pottery in the late 1970s, but it was not until he met a local artist firing Raku pottery that he became serious about the craft. Matt has worked as a chef, professional sailor, corporate recruiter, sommelier, wine broker and restaurateur. He moved to Anderson in 2005, where he currently resides with his wife Jane and two daughters. 

Wendy earned a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts with a focus in Ceramics and Printmaking from Converse College in Spartanburg, SC; after which, she spent 14 years in Massachusetts studying under numerous ceramic and sculpture artists in order to expand her vision and skills. In 2014, Wendy relocated to Salem, SC to focus on her art and family. Her work has been shown in galleries up and down the East Coast and in private collections across the country. 

"I have always been excited by old structures. Stumbling upon the skeleton of an aging building or trapsing through an abandoned factory intrigues me and serves as an exciting bit of inspiration. I love to explore how time and life wears down even the most unyielding of materials… rocks carved by wind and rain; steel that was once unwavering reduced to paper thin. And yet, even through all of the decay, little details shine through giving us a glimpse of the past. This is the jumping off point for much of my artwork.

I find myself attracted to the creation process much as the final product. Perhaps that is why I lean towards wood-firing. The wood fire process involves a team of potters working in concert over the course of several weeks to prepare, load and fire the kiln. Each piece is designed to be fired in a specific area within the kiln to achieve the intended surface and texture. Glazes are used minimally to highlight important details, while bare surfaces are left to allow the wood ash a place to settle and run. Due to the atmospheric nature of the firing, the results cannot be duplicated, ensuring in truly unique work of art.”

Artist Statement

“My work is driven by the desire to explore the emotional core of the human experience through figurative forms. By drawing on archetypal themes and personal reflection, I create sculptures that resonate with a sense of universal identity—one that binds us together across time and culture. While my process began in a traditional clay and pottery studio, I quickly embraced a self-taught path fueled by curiosity, innovation, and a passion for uncovering deeper truths about who we are. As a woman and a mother, my practice is inspired by the interplay of vulnerability and strength, and I strive to channel those subtleties into each piece. Whether I’m sculpting in clay, papier-mâché, or bronze, I aim to transform raw materials into intimate expressions of connection and humanity.”

Bio

Born in 1979, Zeynep A. Gedikoglu spent her childhood immersed in the artistic environment of her family’s studio. With her grandfather’s passion for collecting art serving as an early influence, she gained firsthand exposure to a diverse range of styles and techniques. Her artistic journey gained momentum in 2008 when she joined Pınar Yeşilada’s Clay studio in Istanbul to learn the foundational materials and methods of pottery and sculpture. From this early mentorship, Gedikoglu developed a self-taught approach that champions innovation and figurative exploration.

In 2009 and 2011, she showcased her evolving style in two group exhibitions in Istanbul. After moving to Clemson, South Carolina, in 2012, she continued refining her technique by attending clay workshops at North Greenville University. In 2023, Gedikoglu received the Emerging Artist Grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission, leading to her first solo exhibition at the Etherredge Arts Center at the University of South Carolina Aiken. Her sculptures—collected in Italy, France, the United States, Turkey, and Britain—have also attracted recognition from various media outlets, including FOX Carolina, and were featured in South Carolina Voyager Magazine.

Drawing on her experiences as a woman, mother, and international artist, Gedikoglu weaves

emotional depth and symbolic narratives into her multimedia sculptures, working with wood,

papier-mâché, clay, and bronze. She continues to create new pieces at her studio in Clemson, exhibiting regionally and internationally, and seeking to reconnect with humanity through the power of figurative sculpture.

Bio

Luke Huling is a ceramic figure sculptor from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He currently resides in North Carolina and is an Associate Professor and Coordinator at Sandhills Community College. He received his BFA from Edinboro University and his MFA from Indiana University. He is a past resident at The LUX Center for the Arts and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. He is a scholarship recipient from the National Society of Arts and Letters and the inaugural recipient of the Chris Boger Memorial Award. He actively presents his work in group and solo shows across the country at venues such as NCECA Conferences, The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, and the American Museum of Ceramic Art.

Artist Statement

“Like all crustaceans, lobsters grow inside their shell and eventually become too confined and must molt; a process where lobsters swim to the ocean floor and cast off their old shell to then grow one that is new. With this work, I am inspired by this regenerative process and pair it with the human form to ponder the question if mental strife can be intrinsic to mental growth. If so, what do these new “shells” resemble in human form and how can we learn from the ones we have cast away?”

Artist Statement

Much of my work is constructed through a lens of cultural hybridity: drawing from familial narratives, body, and multiplicity as avenues to examine assimilation. I’m fascinated by the interplay between individual and group, and create sculptural collections that trace and expand on notions of belonging, loss of individuality, and power of group dynamics. As an Asian-American artist, my work often references forms and silhouettes from ancient art histories as a way to re-present “ideal” through double entendre and humor. I try to find the funny in formal: creating suggestions of an Other through flesh, fruit, hair, and sex. As selfie, much of my figurative work incorporates conception of the self-image. I’m interested in the constructs of identity through unlimited possibilities associated with the material properties of clay. I contour, fold, flop, and bend clay to mimic flesh: often as suggestions of combined biomorphic hybrids, a stand-in for selves. Gaze and desire are elicited through the combination of seductive form and finish. In the larger context of my work, I’m interested in the perception of value and its relationship to history, craft, and authorship. I continually question these ideas through a uniquely sculptural perspective: examining how the material has been handled historically, and how I can use it to address body, taste, and objectification. 

Bio

 Born and raised in California, Kevin Kao is a sculptor that explores the construction of collective identity through figure, reflection, and multiplicity. His work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and spaces such as The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA; Atlanta Contemporary in Atlanta, GA; and the Kranzberg Arts Center in St. Louis, MO. Recent awards include recognition as a 2021 finalist in the Young Sculptors Competition at Miami University, the Artist Support Grant from the Regional Arts Commission in St. Louis, and the Warren MacKenzie Advancement Grant presented by the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis. He has earned a B.S. in Biology – Ecology, Evolution and Animal Behavior from the University of California, San Diego; and an M.F.A. in Studio Art – Ceramics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Currently Kao lives and works in Greenville, SC serving as Associate Professor of Art at Furman University.

Artist Statement

Throughout my art career I have experienced and explored several mediums and ways to create.  I have always needed to work with my hands and found clay sculpture rewarding that passion.  The push and pull of hand building a form and bringing an animal or object to life, showing its character and behavior, telling its story through motion and emotion is my goal.  This is my hope for each piece created.

Bio

Donna O’Hara has been painting in Pastels, oils and water media, making art for 40 plus years.  She has worked on both 2 dimensional as well as 3 dimensional pieces and has reacquainted herself with clay sculpture.  In all dimensions and media her connection to Nature with it’s infinite variety of shapes, colors, patterns and compositions are at the center of her work.  

NJ was her first home but traded Tennessee to attend college where she earned a BA in studio art and later a ME with a specialty in art, in NY state.  Donna taught elementary art for 25 years.   She and her husband of 46 years raised two children all while living in upstate NY near the Adirondack Mts and Lake Ontario.  Seven years ago, Donna and John moved to SC where she can continue painting and sculpting, taking inspiration from the beauty she is finding here.  

Workshops in Pastel painting have created an opportunity to work on developing techniques and style .  Donna has taken workshops with Albert Handel, Liz Haywood Sullivan, Richard McKinley, Christine Ivers, and Deborah Quinn Munson in Pastel painting.   She attended a workshop with Shanna Kunitz learning some Oil painting techniques and traveled to the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior to take a week long, Emerson Retreat with Aline Ordman, Dawn Emerson and Lynn Assetta hosted by Richard McKinley at the Madeline Island School of the Arts.

Her paintings and sculptures have been included in the Connecticut Pastel Society shows, Renaissance National Juried Exhibition and Purely Pastel Exhibit.  Since she has moved to SC, Donna has had pieces in the Blue Ridge Art Center juried shows, Anderson Art Center and Anderson Guild juried shows, Pickins Museum juried show and Gateway Art Center juried shows.  Donna has also been painting with the Monday painting group and Open Clay Studio at BRAC, is a member of two Plein Air groups and The Golden Corner Pastel Society.  Donna teaches classes in Pastel, Plein Air Painting and hopes to begin teaching some clay classes at Blue Ridge Art Center.  

Bio

Katherine Van Drie is a multi-media artist whose sculptural works encompass, among other things, textiles, and ceramics. Katherine’s work is informed by the glaring and nuanced complex social codes embedded in our culture. She completed her BFA at Indiana University Northwest and her MFA in Visual Art, with a concentration in Sculpture, at Clemson University. She currently teaches ceramics at the South Carolina School of the Arts at Anderson University in South Carolina and is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Greenville, and Tri-State Sculpture Association. Her work has exhibited at galleries such as Bridgeport Art Center, 33 Contemporary Gallery, Beverly Arts Center, and Zhou B. Art Center in Chicago, IL, as well as Echo Contemporary Art in Atlanta, GA, and ICOSA in Austin, TX.

Artist Statement

Intimate Distortions #18 - 26 are ceramic sculptures that have been fired in an anagama kiln. Synthetic fibers protrude from some of them. Inspired by nature, they are part of a larger body of work, where textiles, fabrics and other man-made materials are used to provoke consideration of our multifarious connections and how things we use and wear affix us to a time and place within our culture and in our relationships to one another.

These hybrids explore how we, who are part of the natural world, contrive to mold our identities and present ourselves to others in enhanced and fabricated ways.

Untitled 4a, a nod to Mondrian, considers domesticity and material consumption and how these are reflected in the spaces we inhabit and the impact they have on the environment.

I took a wheel throwing class and was hooked! The class was taught at the local art museum for 8 weeks each semester and in the summer. Not content to wait around for each new session, I decided I needed my own wheel and kiln. Those evening classes led to my enrolling at the University of Wisconsin at Parkside to embark on a degree in art with a Ceramics Concentration. It was there that I was introduced to and found my voice in ceramic sculpture.

Shortly after graduating we relocated to Port St. Joe, Florida where I opened and ran The Artery, a pottery and art studio with a small gallery. I gave classes in pottery to adults and children and ran summer art camps for kids. I enjoyed running this business for over 8 years, but came to realize that it kept me from being as productive as I wanted to be. Relocating once again to Anderson, SC, my attention is now focused on my artwork.

In all of my work, sculptural and functional, my aim is to bring beauty and meaning to each piece. Making the work brings me joy and satisfaction - and when someone relates to a piece of mine, I feel gratified and humbled.

While I still own that potter’s wheel, I now hand-build most of my work. As a sculptor working in clay I face the physical challenges of the medium along with the aesthetic and artistic challenges. I usually use red stoneware clays because I love the depth of surface that the dark clay brings to the work. I frequently use terra sigillata, slips and underglazes on my surfaces. A judicial use of glazes lends contrast.