Ceramics: News and Events

Nicholas Kripal is Chair of the Crafts Department Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and area head of the department’s Ceramics Program. He is an artist whose studio practice utilizes the ceramic medium as a source for sculptural installations, and who also works in the arena of site-specific/site-related installations, which explore architectural iconography as a source for their format. These installations have been seen as part of Contemplations on the Spiritual Site Projects: Glasgow, Scotland (2001), Site Projects: Kristus Kircke, Cologne, Germany (2002), Site Projects: Sala Uno, Rome, Italy (2001), and Site Projects: The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, New York (2002). Along with sculptor Jeffrey Mongrain he has created site installations for St. Patrick’s Church, Indianapolis, IN (2004); Corpus Christi Church, Baltimore, MD (2005); and Crane Arts Old School, Philadelphia, PA (2011). Recent solo exhibitions have included New Work, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, (2012); Swarm, Philadelphia International Airport (2009-2010); Award Winners, Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, CT (2008); Museo Casa Principala, Vera Cruz, Mexico (2004); and Ceramic Sculpture: Eclipsing Process, Art Gallery, University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia (2003). He is the recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, a Pollock-Krasner grant, and three Pennsylvania Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He has been awarded Artist-in-Residency positions at the La Napoule Art Foundation, France, and Art Park, Lewiston, NY.

Jeffrey Mongrain has been a Professor of Art at Hunter College in New York City since 1995. He previously taught for seven years at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. As described by Art in America’s Contributing Editor, Eleanor Heartney, "Jeffrey Mongrain brings a human dimension to abstracted yet iconic forms. Obliquely references personal metaphor, history, science, sensuality, and the pervasive echoes of sacred spaces he astutely balances form and content. Mongrain’s richly coded images are visually quiet, physically eloquent and conceptually meaningful." A selection of Mongrain’s recent solo exhibitions include: The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia, MO; The San Angelo Museum of Fine Art in San Angelo, TX; The National Museum of Catholic Art in New York City; The Diego Rivera Museum in Guanajuato, Mexico; and The Temple Gallery in Rome, Italy. His work has been reviewed in Art and America, The New York Times, ARTnews, Sculpture, The London Times, The Chicago Tribune, World Sculpture, The Boston Globe, and Arte & Artes International. He has also recently been selected by the Smithsonian Institute to be a contributor to their oral history program in the Archives of American Art.