Harland Miller, Hilary Pecis, Adam Pendleton, and Jordan Casteel are among artists who have collaborated with Artspace and Avant Arte to create a set of hand-painted amphorae. Proceeds from the sale of each amphora will go to charity: water - a nonprofit organisation founded in 2006 which brings clean and safe water to people around the world.
Each amphorae is part of an edition of 30 and there are seven different kinds to choose from. Each artist has reimagined the classical form, hand-painting each ceramic amphora with acrylic paint and finishing it with a matte sealant.
Each amphora is priced at €6,000 (excl. VAT and shipping), and the complete set is available at a special price of €35,000 (excl. VAT and shipping).
Amphorae were traditionally used in ancient Greece as storage jars for wine or water. They are characterized by their gentle curves and pointed base.
Derek Fordjour, Jenny Holzer, and Josh Smith make up the septet of artists offering a hand-painted amphora.
You can learn more about the amphorae and register for the draw to buy one or more here.
Below we take a look at each amphora and bring you a reflection from each artist on the piece they've created.
Jordan Casteel considers the paintings she makes of her garden self-portraits, in the sense that they encapsulate time spent cultivating, observing, and documenting. Peak Summer takes one such painting as its starting point, encircling an amphora with a tangle of vines, leaves, and flowers.
“Peak Summer represents what was actively growing in my garden at that time,” Casteel says. “Purple basil, tomato vines, nasturtium, and marigold blossoms. I don’t typically reiterate my work in forms beyond two dimensions. The process allowed me to see moments I hadn’t before and find compositions within a composition. I’ll probably use mine untraditionally – to hold flowers from my garden.”
Based on a painting of the same name, R U OK? poses a question, also a greeting, in its simplest form. Harland Miller’s use of abbreviation calls to mind rapid online communication and contrasts it with the time taken to impart the phrase on canvas. Within the abstract composition, letters become objects – warped by the curvature of the amphora they surround.
“I don’t want to lean too much on the horoscope – but I’m a Pisces, so I guess water is my element,” Miller says. “I’m connected to it through that. I’m not really a mad fan of deserts – or those movies where people cross them, stop, open their mouths, and up-end their water flasks over their faces to shake out the last drops. That’s always a terrible moment for the character. But I do find it fascinating that the mind can hallucinate an oasis. That’s the power of water – the place it occupies in your subconscious.”
Hilary Pecis paints the kinds of moments that easily pass us by. In doing so, she enshrines their beauty and importance. Her study of lilies and lily pads on the surface of a pond emerged as the perfect reference for her amphora – adapted such that its aquatic composition has no beginning or end.
“I like the idea of a continuous narrative that circumnavigates the surface, so that the beginning and the end might commingle in a very organic way,” Pecis says.
ADAM PENDLETON – Untitled (Blue Amphora)
In his earliest Black Dada paintings Adam Pendleton used only shades and tones of black, combining conceptual inspiration from serialised, logic-driven artworks such as Incomplete Open Cubes (1974) by Sol LeWitt with layered, gestural applications of paint. More recently, he has introduced color, notably ultramarine in the painting referenced by his amphora. The process of transformation – from two to three dimensions, from canvas to clay – echoes the sequential transformations and diverse media that characterise Pendleton’s practice.
“For me, painting is an act of translation and transformation,” Pendleton says. “At each successive step, I watch my gestures evolve and transform. The amphora feels like a natural extension of this approach.”
Motifs quickly become obsessions for Josh Smith. Palm trees painted in silhouette are a focal point of his psychedelic beachscapes. He considers the trees a classical motif, tied closely with water, making his 2019 painting Palms #1 the perfect reference for the ancient form and practical function of an amphora.
“Palm trees are a classical motif, much like the shape of an amphora,” Smith says. “I liked the idea of using palm trees because they allude in a way to the beauty of water, and I wanted to choose an image that would respect the form.”
DEREK FORDJOUR – Horn Trot Round
Horn Trot Round, part of Derek Fordjour’s HBCU Marching Band series, is a painting inspired by the role of shared rituals and group performance in culture – expressed through movement, costume, a theatrical disposition and a collective spirit. Translated to the cylindrical form of an amphora, the parade never ends.
“When considering the significance of mobilising for access to water, I think of the tremendous coordination required for life-saving collective effort,” Fordjour says. “My HBCU Marching Band series is a perfect allegory for harmonious group action. Horn Trot Round is a continuous procession of rhythm and movement, a monument towards a future where more people have greater access to a life-sustaining natural resource."
Jenny Holzer’s texts make bold statements about the modern world. In their lyricism, however, the phrases expose the subjectivity and mutable character of truth. They instruct and inform, while questioning the ways individuals respond to their political, social, physical, psychological and personal environments. From her Survival texts, Jenny chose ‘IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY’ to encircle an amphora painted to resemble aged terracotta.
See all seven amphorae, and register to buy one or more here.
