Caroline Blackburn

Caroline Blackburn is an award winning Los Angeles sculptural ceramic artist. Her vessels explore a deeply held interest in abstract painting, architecture, and nature. Blackburn studied Art History and Studio Arts graduating magna cum laude from Boston College and earned her MFA at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Trained as a painter, her sculptural ceramic work focuses on bringing freshness and immediacy to each piece through color, form, and surface texture. Every work is one of a kind whether it is thrown on a wheel, hand built, or a combination of both techniques. While investigating an interest in form, the work produces a continual shift between surface, texture, color and object. Blackburn uses a wide vocabulary of glazes to accomplish the intense active surface in each piece. She juxtaposes color, texture and drawing using a variety of materials to create a painterly surface and sublime effect, reflecting phenomenon found in nature. When glazing a work, she approaches it as a canvas. She may first apply a slip, draw on the work with a ceramic pencil, and then hand-paint each piece to accomplish a painterly effect. Often as a final step, she will grind selected areas of the surface with a stone.