Paula Winokur: Transcending Memory
Ceramic Sculpture 1990-2004
on view October 29-January 2, 2005

Organized by The Contemporary Museum, this exhibition presents a survey of over 20 works by Paula Winokur (born 1935), who has lived and worked in Horsham, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, since the late 1960s with her husband Robert Winokur, who is also a ceramic artist. Winokur's early works were functional, vessel forms, mostly in stoneware and thrown, but in the early 1970s Winokur moved to porcelain, which has become her signature material. Winokur has said she was attracted to porcelain for its "whiteness, fluidity, responsiveness, and sensuality." While porcelain has traditionally been associated with small and fragile objects, Winokur was drawn to exploring the possibilities of scale, creating since the early 1980s increasingly large sculptural works for the wall, floor, and pedestal.

Winokur's work is inspired by landscape, influenced she has stated "by information gathered at various 'sites,' places in the natural environment that I have responded to visually...the earth, particularly cliffs, ledges, crevices and canyons...and the effects of wind, earthquakes and other natural phenomena such as geological 'shifts' and 'rifts.'" Winokur constructs her works in sections using the slab method--rolling out and shaping masses of clay which are assembled and often cemented or grouted together in the final work. The viewer sees Winokur's works as if from an aerial perspective, looking down on what seem vast expanses pf spaces of rock, ice and soil. Winokur subtly colors her surfaces with metallic sulfates, chlorides, engobes, and stains which often evoke the flow and pooling of water. A highlight of the exhibition is White Butte, done this year (at 7 by 13 feet, Winokur's largest work to date), which an undulating plain comprising a mosaic of forms with a monolith projecting into space. Segments Erraticus (1999), illustrated here, is composed of 12 U-shaped sections that seem to represent slices of an elongated geode, with smooth sides and irregular interiors.

Winokur is also interested in the many ways man has marked and scarred the land (through plowed fields, roads, fences, etc.), and she has a passion for prehistoric ruins and archaeological sites. She engenders in her forms a feeling of age and history by embellishing the surfaces with lines and scratches that resemble ancient markings.

Winokur has not entirely relinquished her relationship to the vessel tradition. In such works as Repetitions: Wasp Ledges (2003-04) she has thrown exquisite, thin-walled bowls that appear to be balanced precariously on ledges or shelf supports. Looking down into each bowl, the viewer discovers worlds in miniature, each containing drawn marks and small objects.

"In retrospect I believe for the most part my work is about memory," Winokur has said, "of places which exist and do not exist." Winokurâs solemn and beautiful sculptures reveal a sensitivity and a searching spirit as she explores an interesting range of dualities--intimacy and monumentality, past and present, delicacy and ruggedness, endurance and mutability.

James Jensen
Associate Director/Chief Curator