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Group of vessels in the ‘Anthropophorae’ series. All images courtesy of Maxwell Mustardo, shared with permission
Maxwell Mustardo’s Fluorescing Ceramics Merge Ancient Craft with Contemporary Style
December 11, 2024
ArtCraft
Kate Mothes
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Merging disparate reference points like cartoonish figures, fluorescent pigments, and classical vessels, Maxwell Mustardo’s Anthropophorae and Gadroons glow with personality. The New Jersey-based artist (previously) continues to revisit ancient forms that have been endlessly studied and reimagined over subsequent centuries, like amphorae, kraters, and gadrooning that celebrate tapered shapes.
“Searching for new forms is mostly rediscovering old forms,” Mustardo tells Colossal. “One of my favorite aspects of ceramics, and the crafts more broadly, is the evolution of surfaces and forms through their constant appropriation in the aggressive exchange that occurs between individuals, studios, cultures, and time periods.”
‘Gadroons’
The artist often turns to archetypes, from mugs and bottles to mathematical shapes—like the torus—to explore myriad relationships between geometry, material, history, and utility. He adds, “Each form provides various constraints that I can push around against and a web of references to tangle with.”
Mustardo is currently working in the studio of the late Toshiko Takaezu (1922-2011), helping the artist’s foundation to establish a residency program for ceramists, fiber artists, and painters. Find more on his website.
“Orange Amphora”
“Blue & White Krater”
Detail of “Orange Mug”
Installation view of ‘Quasi-Neoclassical-ish’ at Odem Atelier. Photo by Nikodem Calcyznski
“Green Amphora.” Photo by Nikodem Calczynski
Detail of “Blurple Mug”
The artist in his studio in August 2024
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Art#China
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#Tang ShuoJanuary 2, 2024
Grace Ebert More
“Portrait of Herman
Smith from Atlantic
City” (2024), charcoal, conté, pastel, and coffee wash on paper, 84 x 120 inches. All images © Robert Pruitt, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, shared with permissionNatural Motifs Entwine the Monumental Figures of Robert Pruitt’s Divine Portraits
June 6, 2025
Art
Grace Ebert
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Through tight, circular marks and soft shading, Robert Pruitt creates portraits that invite viewers into a magical world. Rendered in a mix of charcoal, conté, and pastel, his works are rooted in storytelling and how personal narrative offers insight into broader, more collective questions about Southern culture, rituals, and enmeshed identities.
The artist brings models into his Harlem studio and photographs them donning elaborately constructed costumes. His drawings emerge from these sessions, although Pruitt prefers a monumental scale. Rendered on paper dyed with coffee, the portraits stretch upwards of seven feet, their meticulous shading and linework backdropped by washes of the characteristically warm hue.
“Eve hiding in the Garden of Eden” (2024), charcoal, conté, pastel, and coffee wash on paper, 84 x 60 inches
A recent self-portrait presents the artist in his signature novelty glasses, the swirling X-Ray lenses resting on his forehead. His hands, rather than his face, are the subject of this ten-foot-wide work, and each wears gold jewelry, his hometown represented on a Houston Rockets ring. The title nods to the character of Herman Smith, played by Richard Pryor in the 1978 retelling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Wiz.
Adornment is prominent in Pruitt’s works and serves a dual purpose: it provides a means to excavate questions about identity, culture, place, and time and also offers a chance to find something “fun and weird to draw,” he says. Recurring motifs like lemons, mushrooms, snakes, and birds are a more recent addition to his portraits, and they often envelop the central figure. In “Princess with a plague of Grackles,” for example, the quintessential Texan creature perches on a seated woman’s shoulders and arms.
“Lately, I’ve been thinking more about the body as continuous with the world. Our bodies take things in, let things out—and that process, to me, signals a kind of equality with everything around us,” Pruitt tells Colossal.
“Figure Crowned in T.S.U. Ceramic Headdress (After Roy Vinson Thomas)” (2024), charcoal, conté, coffee wash on paper, 84 x 60 inches
Connecting to nature also invokes the divine and alludes to the artist’s constellation of references, whether it be his interest in science fiction, comic books, music, or his enduring love for “swampy, humid Houston, Texas,” he adds.
I think part of it is nostalgia, especially in contrast to my life now in New York City. I miss home…On some level, these works feel like staging grounds for my own origin story—coming from a complicated metropolis that also feels deeply rural. A kind of Eden, but one filled with mosquitoes and stray dogs. Nature not as cute or comforting but indifferent—and still sacred.
If you’re in New York, you can see Pruitt’s work in a solo exhibition named after a Sun Ra libretto, …Son…Sun…Sin…Syn…zen…Zenith, at Salon 94. Find more from the artist on his website and Instagram.
“Lemon Tree” (2024), conté, pastel, and coffee wash, 84 x 60 inches. Photo by Brica Wilcox, courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles
“Princess with a plague of Grackles” (2024), charcoal, conté, pastel, and coffee wash on paper, 84 x 60 inches
“Y’all Are Just Gon Have to Make Amends” (2021), conté, charcoal, and pastel on coffee wash on paper, 87 1/4 x 63 1/8 x 2 inches. Photo by Dan Bradica
“Man born with a veil” (2024), charcoal, conté, pastel, and fabric dye on paper, 84 x 60 inches
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Installation view of ‘Hew Locke: Here’s the Thing’ (2019), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Photo by Stuart Whipps, courtesy of Ikon Gallery. All images © Hew Locke, courtesy of P·P·O·W, shared with permission
Hew Locke’s ‘Odyssey’ Flotilla Sails Through Global Colonial History and Current Affairs
June 10, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
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Through a multidisciplinary approach spanning painting, photography, sculpture, and installation, British artist Hew Locke OBE RA interrogates “the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, and the symbols through which different cultures assume and assert identity,” says P·P·O·W, which will present a series of the artists’ boat sculptures at Art Basel this month.
Locke has long been interested in the time-honored traditions and spectrum of histories associated with watercraft. For Those in Peril on the Sea (2011), for example, incorporated 70 model boats that, when suspended from the ceiling, appeared to float in a colorful, eclectic flotilla. The artist combined customized models along with vessels made from scratch, representing different styles used around the world. “No crew are visible—the boats themselves are a symbol of the crew and passengers,” a statement says.
“Odyssey 17” (2024), mixed media, 26 x 14 5/8 x 39 3/8 inches. Photos by Damian Griffiths
Eight new vessels in Locke’s Odyssey series will sail through P·P·O·W’s booth at the art fair opening June 19. Representing a range of styles, from wooden gun ships and dreadnoughts to fishing boats and yachts, Locke adds colorful details like flags, painted patterns, patchwork sails, and onboard equipment.
He invites us to consider the myriad associations with boats as fishing vessels, commuter ferries, military fleets, leisure cruises, and symbols of power, exploration, colonization, global conflict, and migration. As people continue to struggle across open seas in search of better lives, crowding onto ships and embarking on dangerous, or even deadly, voyages, maritime history converges with present-day events and global socio-political realities.
“Fusing historical source material with a keen interest in current affairs, often through the juxtaposition or modification of existing artifacts, Locke focuses attention especially on the U.K., the monarchy, and his childhood home, Guyana,” P·P·O·W says.
Sailors have also historically been famously superstitious, based on the inherent risks of their occupation, and they put a great deal of stock in omens. In “Odyssey 30,” for example, Locke illustrates the vessel’s sails with images of men being haunted by skeletons, an instance of memento mori that infuses the piece with a sense of foreboding.
“Odyssey 30” (2024), mixed media, 21 5/8 x 35 7/8 x 6 3/4 inches
Art Basel runs from June 19 to 22 in Basel, Switzerland. From September 2025, an installation titled Cargoes in King Edward Memorial Park, London, will take inspiration from the history of the site’s mercantile and dock communities. And the largest solo survey of the artist’s work to date, Hew Locke: Passages, continues at the Yale Center for British Art through January 11, 2026. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
Installation view of ‘Hew Locke: Here’s the Thing’ (2019), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Photo by Stuart Whipps, courtesy of Ikon Gallery
Detail of “Odyssey 30”
“Odyssey 10” (2024), mixed media, 24 3/4 x 7 1/2 x 25 5/8 inches
“Odyssey 22” (2024), mixed media, 15 3/8 x 7 7/8 x 28 3/4 inches
Installation view of ‘Hew Locke: Here’s the Thing’ (2019), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Photo by Stuart Whipps, courtesy of Ikon Gallery
“Odyssey 13” (2024), mixed media, 29 7/8 x 15 3/4 x 38 1/4 inches
Detail of “Odyssey 30”
“Odyssey 15” (2024), mixed media, 10 1/4 x 20 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches
Detail of “Odyssey 15”
“Odyssey 25” (2024), mixed media, 26 3/4 x 20 7/8 x 14 5/8 inches
Detail of “Odyssey 10”
Installation view of ‘Hew Locke: Here’s the Thing’ (2019), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Photo by Stuart Whipps, courtesy of Ikon Gallery
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