Sharif Bey is a Syracuse-based artist and educator whose inspired by modernism, functional pottery, Oceanic Art and Art of the African diaspora. His works investigate the cultural and political significance of adornment and the symbolic and formal properties of archetypal motifs, while questioning how the meaning of icons and function transform across cultures and time.
The exhibition opens on Friday, February 3 and will remain on view through May 6, 2023 at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery (2011 Tracy Ave, KCMO).
BIO
Although I trained as an apprentice, in a state-of-the art ceramics facility, my current works evolve outside of conventional Western facilities. I primarily work at home (oftentimes with my children), firing in my back yard or fireplace, and resist the narrative that ceramic artists require expensive facilities, costly materials or concentrated periods of time. When professional demands or family life takes up my day, I often carve out a few hours (by way of multiple 10-minute settings), producing small clay components or rummaging through shard piles to reclaim and reconfigure. I employ a combination of traditional and nontraditional ceramics materials and processes to suit my lifestyle. For me, working outside of institutional structures not only affords me more time with my family but invites other material and aesthetic influences into my trajectory. I might use glazes in the ceramic studio but while working in my kitchen I cold-finish works with paste wax and cinnamon/turmeric or incorporate spray/auto body putty in the garage. My practice is informed by my numerous roles and my transient nature, resisting the conventions of ceramic production.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Inspired by folklore, functional pottery, modernism, natural history and my lifelong affinity for West African and Oceanic sculpture, my works investigate the symbolic and formal properties of archetypal motifs, questioning how the meaning of icons, objects and functions evolve and transform across cultures and over time. As a consequence of colonialism and conquest African and Oceanic ceremonial objects made their way into Western consciousness as looted artifacts, stripped of their original frames of reference, inspiring European modernists both for their aesthetic interests and perceived otherness. Specifically, I am interested in investigating how fetish, racism, science fiction and popular culture impedes interpretations of ‘non-western’ cultural objects. I play on “westernized conjecture” by producing works that suggest nonwestern utilitarian, ceremonial or ritualistic purpose but are ultimately designed for ‘display’ for the Western spectator/consumer. I ultimately seek to expose the interpretative deficiencies of the colonized mind and place them on display beside my work.
