Exhibition > Featured Artists

Jonathan Cross

Jonathan Cross is an artist currently focusing on ceramic sculpture, using carving techniques and atmospheric firings, in particular salt firing and wood firing. He currently resides in Pasadena, California. He recently received his MFA from Arizona State University. Jonathan had the privilege to assist Don Reitz at his ranch in Cottonwood, Arizona where he gained invaluable experience firing wood kilns. His work has been exhibited throughout the Southwest from Dallas to Los Angeles and is currently exhibiting at Bentley Gallery in Phoenix, Arizona, Barry Whistler Gallery in Dallas, Texas and online at Touching Stone Gallery. His work is represented in many private collections and was recently purchased by the Las Cruces Museum of Art, New Mexico.

I have been creating work by sculpting forms using a variety of techniques -- cutting, tearing, chiseling, and carving -- in doing so the work takes on this geologic and architectural quality. Using different clays, glazes and firing processes the surfaces of the vessels are given a worn quality and patina, reinforcing the natural, aged look of the piece, evident in the earthy tones found on the vessels: dark basalt blacks, warm rust reds, and sandy oranges. The juxtaposition of the natural and manmade in the work provokes images of the monumental, both in nature and in art and architecture. The often diminutive work is made larger in the mind through associations to both the natural environment and the built one, with surfaces that lend the work a timeless quality.