Brian Rochefort
Brian Rochefort (b. 1985) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (2007) and was a 2018 Visiting Artist Lecturer at the University of Iowa. He has completed residencies at The Mistake Room, Guadalajara, MX (2018) and the Lillian Fellowship Residency at the Archie Bray Foundation (2009).
Rochefort’s unedited ‘gloop’ sculptures represent a relentless material romance. These sculptures represent a blending of old and new ceramic techniques. These perfectly mis-informed hollow, ceramic vessels are at once complimentary to one another while each retains their own distinct composition and form.
Rochefort's works are created utilizing a process that is both additive and subtractive; each piece begins as a large unfired work that Rochefort smashes, and sometimes breaks apart, imbuing the piece with spontaneous uncertainty. The works are then submerged in mud and clay and then fired over to add color and build texture. Chromatically rich in color, and highly varied in surface structure and finish, these works can resemble a marine habitat or a Hubble photograph. Rochefort infuses these organic forms with otherworldly surfaces, made with glaze, ceramics, and glass. The interior space of each sculpture is made of pooled glazes and melted glass on the bottom of the work, referencing the artist's experience visiting the Blue Hole and Actun Tunichil Muknal caves, among the sites in Belize he has visited and experienced. Rigorous investigations into process and material, Rochefort's work pushes the formal and technical confines of the medium of tradition-bound ceramics; he expands past its limitations to new territories of freedom, invention, and play.
Brian Rochefort (b. 1985) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (2007) and was a 2018 Visiting Artist Lecturer at the University of Iowa. He has completed residencies at The Mistake Room, Guadalajara, MX (2018) and the Lillian Fellowship Residency at the Archie Bray Foundation (2009).
Rochefort’s unedited ‘gloop’ sculptures represent a relentless material romance. These sculptures represent a blending of old and new ceramic techniques. These perfectly mis-informed hollow, ceramic vessels are at once complimentary to one another while each retains their own distinct composition and form.
Rochefort's works are created utilizing a process that is both additive and subtractive; each piece begins as a large unfired work that Rochefort smashes, and sometimes breaks apart, imbuing the piece with spontaneous uncertainty. The works are then submerged in mud and clay and then fired over to add color and build texture. Chromatically rich in color, and highly varied in surface structure and finish, these works can resemble a marine habitat or a Hubble photograph. Rochefort infuses these organic forms with otherworldly surfaces, made with glaze, ceramics, and glass. The interior space of each sculpture is made of pooled glazes and melted glass on the bottom of the work, referencing the artist's experience visiting the Blue Hole and Actun Tunichil Muknal caves, among the sites in Belize he has visited and experienced. Rigorous investigations into process and material, Rochefort's work pushes the formal and technical confines of the medium of tradition-bound ceramics; he expands past its limitations to new territories of freedom, invention, and play.