LOS ANGELES, USA

CAROLINE BLACKBURN

ARTIST STATEMENT

Caroline Blackburn is an award-winning native Los Angeles sculptural ceramic artist, who creates vessels that represent the optimism of possibility. The artist explores her interests in abstract painting, architecture and nature through clay. Trained as a painter, her sculptural ceramic work focuses on bringing a freshness and immediacy to each piece through colour, form, and surface texture. The artist approaches glazing like painting a canvas. She may first apply a slip, draw on the work with a ceramic pencil, and then hand-paint each piece with brushes of a variety of widths to accomplish a painterly effect and then, finally, grinding the surface with a stone.

Blackburn utilizes size, shape, colour and texture in unusual and rule-breaking ways to construct art works infused with tension created by combining oppositions – the conflicting and compatible, contemporary and ageless, soft and textured, thrown and hand-built, and the perfect and imperfect.

Biography   |   Artist CV

 

CAROLINE BLACKBURN
  • Vessel No. 895Vessel No. 895
    CAROLINE BLACKBURN

    Vessel No. 895

    $3,143.00
    $3,143.00
  • Vessel No. 919Vessel No. 919
    CAROLINE BLACKBURN

    Vessel No. 919

    $1,094.00
    $1,094.00
  • Vessel No. 868Vessel No. 868
    CAROLINE BLACKBURN

    Vessel No. 868

    $1,504.00
    $1,504.00
  • Vessel No. 953Vessel No. 953
    CAROLINE BLACKBURN

    Vessel No. 953

    $3,075.00
    $3,075.00
  • Vessel No. 969Vessel No. 969
    CAROLINE BLACKBURN

    Vessel No. 969

    $2,545.00
    $2,545.00
About CAROLINE BLACKBURN

Caroline Blackburn, is an award winning native Los Angeles sculptural ceramic artist, who creates vessels that expose new means of possibilities in clay forms. She explores her interest in abstract painting, architecture, and nature through clay. Blackburn studied art history and studio arts at Boston College. While at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California she studied with some of the foremost artists of our times while earning a MFA focusing in fine arts. While on summer break in college she attended Pasadena City College where she met ceramic artist Phil Cornelius who encouraged her to work on a large scale and fire with experimental materials. She opened her own ceramic studio in 2002.

Caroline’s work is informed by her extensive professional career in the Arts. While at the Museum of Contemporary Art from 1988 – 2002, she designed the museum’s educational programs working directly with many of the distinguished exhibiting artists. While at UCLA Architecture from 2002–2018 she directed public programs and print, media, and marketing. Being saturated in contemporary art and architecture at this level is a rare and amazing opportunity that shaped her understanding and artistic interpretation of art, architecture, and design.

Trained as a painter, her sculptural ceramic work focuses on bringing a 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. Each vessel provides a contemporary sense of life that is very personal and universal at the same time.

CAROLINE BLACKBURN CV

Awards
2019 Ink & Clay 44, W. Keith & Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Donor’s Choice Award
2018 Beverly Hills Art Show (Spring), (Second Place)
2017 Beverly Hills Art Show (Fall), (First Place)
2016 Beverly Hills Art Show (Spring), (Second Place)
2016 Pasadena Fine Arts Club, Artists Award
2015 26th California Clay Competition, Artery Gallery, Davis, CA, First Prize, Association of Clay and Glass Artists Award
2015 Beverly Hills Art Show (Spring), Honorable Mention
2014 Ink & Clay 40, W. Keith & Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, University President’s Purchase Award (First Prize)
2014 Beverly Hills Art Show (Fall), Second Place
2012 Orange County Fair Visual Art Competition, Honorable Mention
2011 Beverly Hills Art Show (Spring), Honorable Mention
2011 22nd California Clay Competition, Artery Gallery, Davis, CA, Afatosa Award
Exhibitions
2021 Further From Form, JF Chen, Los Angeles, December 9, 2021 – February 27, 2022
2019 Ink & Clay 44, W. Keith & Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, August 22 – November 21, 2019
2018 4×3 Contemporary Ceramics and Glass, Betsy Lueke Creative Arts Center Gallery, Burbank, September 7 – 28, 2018
2017
Ink & Clay 43, W. Keith & Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, September 23 – October 26, 2016.
4th Clay & Glass Biennial, Brea Art Gallery, Brea, June 22 – September 22, 2017.
2016
SoCal Ceramics and Glass, Muzeo Museum, Anaheim, November 12 – January 2, 2017.
Ink & Clay 42, W. Keith & Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, September 24 – October 27, 2016.
Pasadena Fine Arts Club Award exhibition, Caltech University, February 2016.
2015
Association of Clay and Glass Arts of California Ceramics in Focus, Davis Arts Center, Davis, CA, May 1 – May 27, 2015.
26th California Clay Competition, The Artery, Davis, CA, May 1 – May 29, 2015.
Cool Heat, Offramp Gallery, Pasadena, CA, May 31 – June 28, 2015
Fired by Junzo, Creative Arts Center Gallery, Burbank, CA, June 5 – 25, 2015
2014
Ink & Clay 40, W. Keith & Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA, September 13 – October 23, 2014. http://www.inkclay40.com/#brochure America’s ClayFest II, Blue line Arts, Roseville, CA, April 18 – May 31, 2014.
2013
Ink & Clay 39, W. Keith & Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA, September 12 – October 26, 2013; juror Stanton Hunter.
Ceramic Biennial 2013, Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA, August 10 – September 29, 2013.
Made in California, City of Brea Art Gallery, Brea, CA, March 23– May 3, 2013; juror Meg Linton.
Clay and Glass National Juried Exhibition, City of Brea Art Gallery, Brea, CA, January 26 – March 1, 2013; juror Carol Sauvion.
2012
Orange County Fair Visual Arts Competition, Costa Mesa, CA, July 13–August 12, 2012.
American Ceramic Society–Design Chapter: The Presidentʼs Show, City of Burbank Creative Arts Center Gallery, Burbank, CA, May 4 – 24, 2012.
Ink & Clay 38, W. Keith and Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA, March 15 – April 27, 2012; juror: Carol Sauvion.
2011
CRAFT USA ʻ11 National Craft Triennial at the Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, Connecticut, November 13 – December 23, 2011; juror: Holly Hotchner, Director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
16th Annual Nellie Allen Smith Juried Pottery Competition, Fayetteville, NC, October 28 –November 21, 2011.
Art From The Ashes: Artist Unite for Japan, Royal/T, Culver City, CA, September 17 – 23, 2011.
Benefit Auction for the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, May 1, 2011.
22nd Annual California Clay Competition, The Artery, Davis, CA, April 29 – May 27, 201; juror: Nancy Servis. exhibition catalogue at http://www.theartery.net/docs/2011_catalog.pdf