Jennifer Masley ( She/her )

In my studio, I work from a set of 10 slip cast molds derived from hand-made forms—cartoonishly smooth objects and generalized pinch-pots. These include a cone, splat, tomato, eggplant, banana, sword, clown, heart, grapes, a pillow, and a paper bag. I assemble casts of these molds into abstract compositions, treating the ceramic surfaces like canvases. Through airbrushed imagery, drawings, and thin, tape-cast clay stickers, I build layered narratives that explore symbolism, humor, and materiality.

My work draws from both historical and contemporary uses of casting. I look to artists like Viola Frey, Kathy Butterly, Arlene Shechet, and Jeff Koons, each engaging with ceramics in ways that stretch function and form. Their influence—alongside antique Western porcelain and thrifted slip cast objects—anchors my practice in a lineage of ceramics that is both reverent and irreverent. These artists and traditions inform how I balance control with spontaneity, and earnestness with absurdity.

Ceramics has long served as a vehicle to express universal themes: birth, death, sex, beauty, and the mundane. I’m interested in continuing this tradition, embedding these narratives in compositions that speak to our current cultural moment—where sincerity, humor, and darkness coexist. I want my work to feel contemporary while resonating with timeless human experiences.

Formally, I’m interested in the push and pull between precision and chaos. My surfaces borrow from European majolica and overglazing traditions, which I recontextualize to serve my imagery. Majolica acts as negative space—a quiet surface to support illustrations—while iron wash and layered firings create texture and depth. I often fire pieces multiple times, allowing each layer to evolve, crack, or collapse. These accidents aren’t mistakes; they’re elements I try to frame, encourage, and highlight.

I’m drawn to visual symbols that offer narrative cues: a sword that can slash or point, a clown as a stand-in for a human presence, fruit with cultural and sexual undertones. The banana and eggplant allude to cheeky innuendos, the tomato recalls theater and public shame, the pillow references royal caskets or thrones. These recurring symbols add levity and weight, often simultaneously. The inclusion of a snail, for example, suggests a slow-moving character on the periphery—inviting empathy or humor.

Stickers play a dual role in the work. They reference childhood, ownership, care, and defacement—like decorating a school binder. They also nod to contemporary beauty culture, such as pimple patches that both conceal and highlight. In this way, stickers become both surface embellishment and cultural commentary. They echo the decorative black “beauty marks” painted on European porcelain, a collision of aesthetics, concealment, and self-presentation.

Ultimately, I see my practice as a conversation with clay—one where I bring a level of control, but allow the material to speak. Cracks, slumps, and imperfections are not failures, but collaborators. My work is playful, serious, chaotic, and crafted—a reflection of the tensions I see in everyday life and in the ongoing history of ceramics.

Jennifer Masley is an artist born and raised in central Texas. She earned her B.F.A. from Texas State University and her M.F.A. from Kent State University with a concentration in ceramics. Her work has been exhibited at the Artist Archive of the Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art and numerous conferences and symposiums including Sculpture X, NCECA and the CAN Triennial. She was a visiting artist at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2022 and was a recent Artist-in-Residence at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Maine (2024) and Anderson Ranch art Center in Colorado (2024).

Jennifer’s research practice also includes experimental and curatorial projects. Some solo projects include a 10-week installation project using 800 pounds of unfired clay within a shipping container at Outside the Box Residency in Akron, Ohio (2023), and an outdoor pop-up with PLZ DONT MOW at a garden center in Bath, Ohio (2024). In 2020 she co-curated an ephemeral exhibition titled “3 uhauls in the library parking lot” where 3 U-haul trucks were converted into temporary open-air exhibition spaces.