See How Joanna Powell Strips Pots to Their Essence, Then Rebuilds

Ceramic artist Joanna Powell begins her pots with a reductive process, dismantling conventional ideas of functional objects. She’ll take a pot, like a mug, and strip it of everything unnecessary that our culture has projected onto it over centuries. Her goal is not optimal functionality or supreme ergonomics, but she aims to penetrate the essence of these familiar vessels.

“I enjoy the not knowing. A lot of times I will pretend not to know something so that I can think about it again in a new way.” – Joanna Powell

The idea of deconstructing conventions takes priority over the function itself. That’s not to say her work is dysfunctional, but a user may be challenged with her awkward handles or bulging decoration.

Joanna Powell – Ceramic Artist

Powell takes her fresh outlook and begins to reconstruct the pottery with her own narrative. She rebuilds the design, with stringy handles or pinched surfaces, and reimagines decoration and color, ultimately creating a new perceived history for the ancient pottery archetypes.

Powell seeks to imbue everyday moments with a celebration of the imperfect, bringing soul, humor, and personality to our mass-produced, digital lives. Her work speaks of history, conventions, challenging the status quo, and embracing the imperfect. Powell’s art is a rejection of many of the issues of the social and political problems of today caused by our culture’s inability to reconsider old ideas, experiment with new ones, and objectively look at questions. Understanding her pots teaches us to reconsider our outlook on life, making us hyper-aware of conventions, facades, and essence.

Powell told Daily Metal, “I am committed to the intangible and intuitive aspects of art. Through the things I make, I give people some insight into how I see. I believe that all objects contain energy that embodies a feeling.”

Joanna Powell – Ceramic Artist

Powell is a ceramic artist who received her B.F.A from The University Of North Texas and her M.F.A from The University of Colorado. In 2015 she was a Visiting Instructor of Ceramics at Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS, where she currently resides and works.