If the opposite of fine art is functional art, Monterey artist Vanessa Cowdrey occupies “the fun place in between,” she says, opening the door to the Monterey Peninsula College Art Gallery that has been closed since the first wave of Covid-19.
Against the pristine white walls, Cowdrey’s repurposed materials look like offerings, earthy and quite minimalistic altars to celebrate matter. The title of the exhibit is Vesselness.
“I always had an affinity for materials some consider waste, but this job really opened my eyes,” Cowdrey says about her position as a ceramic studio specialist at MPC. “There are so many interesting leftovers at the end of the semester… Materials have their own agency and can teach you a lot.”
While the gallery is still suffering from not having a permanent manager, Cowdrey was able to have it open for two weeks – a pop-up that is also her first solo exhibition. With a bachelor’s in architecture, she is currently finalizing her master’s in fine arts (in interdisciplinary arts) at the University of Nevada-Reno.
More installations than artifacts, some of Cowdrey’s work use saggars – ceramic box-like containers used in the firing of pottery inside a kiln, a thermally insulated chamber that is a type of oven. She is using them as collection vessels, filling them with what look like bones, playing with the overabundance and the lack, with what can be seen and what is hidden, testing “the generosity of gravity,” she says.
The exhibit also features ceramics and works on paper – drawings, prints, paintings and photographs. The drawing series that gave the exhibit its title constitutes Cowdrey’s inquiry into femininity, where the female form is discussed as a vessel, with all its purposes, including the pressure to have family.
Another piece, titled “What Remains,” would be an example of a functional art (a vase), except that it was made as a traditional funeral tribute to Cowdrey’s father, who recently passed. In other words, this study of materials’ long lifespan is accompanied by personal narrative.
Cowdrey’s goal is to imagine “how many forms [matter can] take after how many eons,” she says.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.