Artist Joan Bontempo’s work in clay and mixed media interlaces variations of traditional imagery, surface and vessel with the continuity and use of written symbols and venerable forms: the markings and the graffitied, the reimagined, renovated, sampled and the patched together, exploring the beauty in the layers marred by time and neglect.

The exhibit Alleys and Artifacts (2024) presents figurative works referencing icons of spiritual defenders or prophets; traditional vessel forms rendered with colorful, textured, casual twists; and a series of abstract works integrating surface, time and place in canvases and mixed media constructions. They are inspired by passages, entrances and partitions. They are collected memories enhanced with the colors and textures of use and time.

It is easy to get lost in the density of visual information within much of Bontempo’s work. She clearly finds joy in allowing her materials to organically morph and conglomerate until things hit critical mass. Even her vases are tightly packed with details that demand our attention. However, it is what Bontempo omits from her maximalist approach that often gives us the best insights to her priorities - those vases often twist themselves apart until they can no longer act as vessels. Here, functionality and traditional purpose has been completely sacrificed for the sake of narrative and sensation.