Burnished Ceramic Vessels
by Jeffrey Loura, USA

Informed by a fashion career in New York, and inspired by an architectural epiphany at Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, Jeffrey Loura’s wheel thrown stoneware vessels are a meditation on binary concepts that shape our existence: individualism / community; female / male; life / death. Jeffrey’s ceramic practice began with the orb, a primary and archetypal form that he dedicated years to perfecting. While the orb is a perfect unitary object, the bisected orb expresses the elegantly segmented nature of life; components cohering to form a balanced whole. The vessels' surface are built up with multiple layers of slip, each one burnished using several different processes to create a veil-like patina. Jeffrey seeks to embody the ancient and elemental, expressed in modern form.