Joe Bova (USA)

What the I Ching says about grace below is as close to a truth as I know about what are my concerns in work with clay.

"The most perfect grace consists not in external ornamentation but in allowing the original material to stand forth, beautified by being given form."

This cast of the I Ching is as close to a "truth" as I know about my work in clay. I want my work to always reveal the direct evidence of my hand. I believe that making art and understanding art requires intellectual rigor, yet is fundamentally a somatic experience. In making an animal figure of clay I want the clay to "stand forth" recognized for what it is while it also conveys a second reality.

"My work has always been figurative, involving both human and animal imagery, however for the last three years I have concentrated on animal imagery. Recent work also integrates function. Duality and simultaneity are also interests of mine. In making an animal figure of clay I want the clay to 'stand forth' recognized for what it is while it also conveys a second reality. Clay as clay; clay as alligator skin. Animals as themselves; animals as the surrogates of ourselves."

Animals have always enthralled me. As a child I drew animals obsessively, drawing them, in fact, before I began talking. Growing up in Texas in a family of outdoorsmen, I learned to hunt and fish at an early age. These experiences with animals, along with the study of historical and contemporary works in ceramics, which is densely rich in such imagery informs my work. Among these influences the pottery of Pre-Columbian classical Moche pottery was early and has been enduring. Almost as important has been the animal sculptures found in other ancient cultures around the world: from the Qin and Han dynasties in China to early Greek and Etruscan works in terra cotta.

Among artists in my own time I have admired the work of Giacomo Manzu´ the most, particularly for his handling clay as an expressive material. I have tried in my own work to exploit the plastic quality of clay in such a way that if an analogous word to "painterly" existed then "clayerly" would apply to my work.

Joe Bova will be in residence during September 2004