Many potters talk about earth, fire, history and lifestyle as an unintentional result of their pottery practice (like a life-long art performance), but Justin Donofrio has isolated a set of specific topics for a powerful confrontation of ideas. Experiencing his work leads the user on a visceral pathway to considering our relationships with environment – personal and natural – in the framework of ergonomic and aesthetically compelling functional pottery for daily use. Owning his work is daily reminder to stay conscious of how we move through he world – not telling us how to do it, but simply reenforcing our individual accountability.
Like the irony of taking a picture of someone taking a picture, Donofrio layers themes about earth using earth. Using clay, he mimics sedimentary layers and he fabricates natural colors. A sculptor makes representations of his subjects in order to give a new outside perspective of them – Donofrio is making representations of his medium to do the same. The fresh perspective brings into focus questions about strongly held cultural conventions of things like design, surface, material, and origin.
“I contemplate the dynamic relationship between materiality and landscape and our attempt to control it.”
By fabricating nature using nature Donofrio touches on our culture’s obsession with controlling environments in an attempt to both own it and contain it. We put up bird feeders to extract the best parts of experiencing wildlife we add wood veneers to particle board to be around the breathtaking beatuy of hardwood even if it is represented by 1/10 millimeter of printed plastic . Donofrio artificially colors clay, the most natural of colors, to mimic another more conventionally beautiful natural color. This is successful in truly making the work visually pleasing, but also leaves us uneasy about what he’s sacrificed to get there – constructing a new ideal for the beauty of clay, and putting into perspective the ideals we’ve constructed in our own lives for nature, food, locations, or products.
“The juxtaposition of the natural and artificial speaks to a notion of manicured space in an attempt to cultivate order.”
Donofrio’s focus on natural material is also reflected in the design of the work. He often uses unglazed clay forcing the user to touch the essence of the material, unprotected by a glass coating typical of functional pottery. He embraces the cracks, movement, and smears of the clay frozen by the firing to project a clear sense of the properties of the material at the moment of inception. This imbues the work with both a sense of clarity in process and a an overwhelming sense of the role of the maker.
“Focusing on the fluidity of process and materials as remnants of making, I work with a limited number of tools and movements to allow the clay to actively inform the line quality and elegant volume. The presence of process in the work is essential as my forms are searching for confidence in their construction.”
Donofrio received his BFA from Colorado State University in 2016 and has already landed 9 upcoming exhibitions for 2018. He currently has an outstanding exhibition at Red Lodge Clay Center (March 2nd-April 30th, 2018) and if you are at NCECA, stop by the ArtStream Nomadic Gallery to meet Donofrio and pick up one of his pieces! You can also see him included in our popular list of 9 Potters To Watch in 2018.
For a limited time we are giving away a mug by Donofrio. Enter to Win Here! 
