Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, Graham Marks committed himself to a studio practice that led him to the production of nearly thirty deeply ambiguous and distinctive coil-built earthenware sculptures. His work during those decades was monumental, organic, and enigmatic: textured, fragmented spheres that recalled geodes or seed pods but on a scale comparable to the viewer’s own body. He described them as non-specific objects, almost autonomous forms that he hoped would exist beyond titles or nameable descriptions; they were intended to be closer in feeling to ancient Neolithic ceramics and vernacular architectural structures with a potency, mysterious presence, and abstract delineation of simple geometric form that could tease out something about the human condition and our place within the instinctual logic of the natural world. Bisected by spirals, slices, cross-sections, and hollow interior spaces, these vessels retained, for Marks, “the idea of a container (house, hive, nest, body, shell) … The holes [were] an attempt to reveal the space between the walls, to contradict the illusion of mass – to hint at the dark space within that is not available.”
📸:
@joeinstakramm
#GrahamMarks
![Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, Graham Marks committed himself to a studio practice that led him to the production of nearly thirty deeply ambiguous and distinctive coil-built earthenware sculptures. His work during those decades was monumental, organic, and enigmatic: textured, fragmented spheres that recalled geodes or seed pods but on a scale comparable to the viewer’s own body. He described them as non-specific objects, almost autonomous forms that he hoped would exist beyond titles or nameable descriptions; they were intended to be closer in feeling to ancient Neolithic ceramics and vernacular architectural structures with a potency, mysterious presence, and abstract delineation of simple geometric form that could tease out something about the human condition and our place within the instinctual logic of the natural world. Bisected by spirals, slices, cross-sections, and hollow interior spaces, these vessels retained, for Marks, “the idea of a container (house, hive, nest, body, shell) … The holes [were] an attempt to reveal the space between the walls, to contradict the illusion of mass – to hint at the dark space within that is not available.” : @joeinstakramm#GrahamMarks](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6739177055633767632214_0_593791e260a9542b7a13b0a238c10b65.jpg?o=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&h=1e826a7923bbbd60ebcf2ae25c36062b)
