By Charlotte Brookins
Four students from the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences were selected to show their ceramics work in a highly competitive national exhibition this March.
Out of 243 applicants, graduate students Brant Weiland, Patrick Ryan and Randi Bachman, as well as undergraduate senior Ivy Jewell will show their work during the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts’ Juried Student Exhibition at the Reed Gallery in Cincinatti, Ohio. With 39 total art pieces on display, the four UI students make up more than 10 percent of the show, and Jewell is one of just twelve undergraduates featured.
Weiland, a fourth-year graduate student, says being selected is an honor, and he is thrilled about the opportunity.
“I’m excited for the exposure this might bring as well as the connections I may make with peers in the community,” Weiland says.
Weiland, who hopes to pursue a career in art after he graduates, is excited to network with peers and professionals, and show his unique work.
“The selected artwork is a response to my understanding of a place and what we leave as traces of our existence,” he says.
He explains that the piece is built up in layers of cast porcelain with slip-cast ceramic objects embedded throughout the layers. After it is built up, he can carve it back and rediscover what was buried in the clay.
“It's a gesture between what it means to bury and excavate, the value of archival objects, and how historical narrative shapes our culture,” Weiland says, of his artwork.
Student artwork will be on display in the gallery from Jan. 26- March 18, 2022. It will run in tandem with Current, the NCECA’s annual conference exhibition.
Weiland is excited for the exhibition and says he couldn’t do it alone.
“I'm grateful to the instructors I've had as mentors and guides that gave me the space to create with this material and showed support that my ideas were worth pursuing when there was nothing but a poorly drawn sketch,” Weiland says.
More information about the NCECA and this exhibition can be found online.
