The sculptural objects created by John Byrd and Neil Bender investigates Americana, humor, and audacity through disrupted and exaggerated ceramic form. Through color, surface, and whimsical destruction, the artists take on an intriguing yet questionable political climate that is both highly problematic and seductive.

Large-scale platters and perverse forms by Andy Nasisse and Neil Bender occupy the walls, acknowledging and defying functionality while playing with the iconicity of face and animal and the spaces in between. Nasisse's playful and probing stylization and Bender's hypersexual and graphic drawings combine on forms that are familiar yet psychologically taut.

John Byrd and Andy Nasisse are artists whose main vocabulary in making is ceramics; Neil Bender is a painter. These collaborations have allowed Bender to think about form in a new way. The evocative and stylized forms found within John Byrd's and Andy Nasisse's work combined with the erotic subject matter and beautiful graphic quality of Neil Bender's imagery create a new dynamic in the approach of ceramics as a medium.

Neil Bender was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and currently lives and works in Florida. His work has been shown nationally and internationally, at the Front in New Orleans, the Boston Center for the Arts, the CUE Art Foundation in New York, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Saltworks Gallery in Atlanta, the Boston Center for the Arts, Fe Gallery in Pittsburgh, Palazzo Casali in Cortona, Italy, among others. He received the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant in 2002 after getting his degree from the University of Georgia, attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2004, and the 'Painting's Edge' program in Idyllwild, CA in 2006 and 2008. Neil Bender is represented by Bleu Acier.

John Byrd currently lives and works in Florida and he is represented by the Mindy Solomon Gallery of St. Petersburg, Florida. John Byrd has had numerous exhibits at New York City's Garth Clark Gallery - the nation's most prestigious ceramic arts gallery. He received his MFA from University of Washington in 2000 and his BFA from Louisiana State University in 1997. His work has been shown in galleries and museums throughout the United States and abroad. In 2010, the Virginia A. Groot Foundation granted him a second place award.

Andy Nasisse is Professor Emeritus of the University of Georgia and he has received numerous awards and commissions dating to 1980, including a major Architectural Commission for Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, Ford foundation Research Grant, National Endowment for the Arts Regional Fellowship, Albert Christ-Janer Award for a Lifetime of Creative Research (UGA), and currently a Nominator for the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Since 1984, Nasisse has had 22 major solo exhibitions and over 50 group exhibitions and his work can be found in major public collections in the United States and abroad.

BLEU ACIER INC. is a Fine Art Print Publisher with an atelier that functions as a collaborative and contract studio owned and operated by Erika Greenberg-Schneider, and the show room exhibits works in all disciplines with a concentration in works on paper and prints by emerging, mid-career and established artists from the US and Europe, with an emphasis on Contemporary French Artists.


For more information or images please contact Erika Schneider: 813. 215. 0622
erika@bleuacier.com

Gallery Hours: during the NCECA
Wednesday March 30th: 12-5 PM
Opening Reception: Thursday March 31st: 4-9 PM
Friday April 1st: 11-5 PM
Saturday April 2: 12-5 pm

Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: April 5, 7, 8: by appointment
Saturday April 9th: 12-5 pm


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