Eternal return (2024), terracotta vessel, plaster, wood, steel, resin clay modeling paste, and acrylic paint, 23 5/8 x 42 1/2 x 37 3/4 inches. Photo by Damian GriffithsClementine Keith-Roach Unearths Ancient Vessels for Her Motherly SculpturesNovember 17, 2024ArtGrace EbertFrom her studio in Dorset, Clementine Keith-Roach sculpts expressive, bodily forms that appear as if plucked from an ancient cavern or soot-filled cellar.The terracotta works feature fragments of weathered limbs that crisscross and grasp fingers around hand-built vessels. Dents, cracks, and white patina mark the surfaces of each domestic object and trace their histories and former uses.I is another (2024), terracotta vessel, plaster and resin composite, wood, steel, resin clay,modeling paste, and acrylic paint, 20 1/2 x 58 1/4 x 29 7/8 inches. Photo by Damian GriffithsIn a conversation with Colossal, Keith-Roach frequently references themes of nurturing and communal responsibility and the roles she sees those values playing in a world that strives more earnestly for equality and care. What if we saw mothering as a metaphor, she asks?The transformative nature of pregnancy, the ways bodies merge, and a mandate of care figure prominently in the artists practice. When she became a mother herself, she felt broken apart, both psychologically and physically as she responded to the needs of the baby. This severing between mind and body remains in Keith-Roachs work, as nude, headless chests buttress a wide, sloping bowl in Eternal return, for example. Although she currently enjoys leaving the vessels empty, milk would fill the basins in some of her earlier pieces, directly invoking motherhood.Keith-Roach refers to her new workswhich are on view at PPOW in New Yorkas statues, although she complicates the idea that monuments deify singular people, often men with imperial inclinations. Instead, her sculptures remain anonymous and contain several pairs of hands or limbs that, often literally, elevate a central object.A statue boils down to a representation of an individual. Even if theyre the most extraordinary person, theyre born out of a social moment, the artist adds. An individual is never isolated. Theyre born out of a kind of collective moment.Detail of I is another (2024), terracotta vessel, plaster and resin composite, wood, steel, resin clay,modeling paste, and acrylic paint, 20 1/2 x 58 1/4 x 29 7/8 inches. Photo by Damian GriffithsAt the center of each work is an antique terracotta amphora the artist sources from second-hand shops and markets. Plaster casts of her own body and those of her friends create a series of detached limbs that, despite retaining the distinctive wrinkles and shapes of a particular person, are unidentifiable as they cradle or reach across the vessel.For some sculptures, Keith-Roach wanted to have the bodies merge before they were pulled from the cast. When creating Herm, for example, she asked her subjects to stand tightly together, allowing their skin to touch so she could create one form from two figures. In many works, she says, a multitude of people becomes one mass.Once she fuses the body parts to the anchoring amphora, Keith-Roach embarks on a deceptive trompe loeil process, in which she paints and conditions the new additions to mimic the patinaed surfaces of the older components. In the completed sculptures, theres tension between the bodys inevitable decay and the timeless durability of ceramic, which the artist celebrates: My works have this sacred quality to them. Theres raising the domestic vessel up, transforming it into something ceremonial. Its taking it out of the everyday and making it into an object of reflection. Its the same with the body parts. Its looking at these movements and gestures and things we do every day and monumentalizing them. Its monumentalizing the everyday.Keith-Roachs solo exhibition New Statue is on view through December 21. You can find more of her work on Instagram.No one (2024), terracotta vessel, plaster, wood, steel, resin clay modeling paste, and acrylic paint, 18 7/8 x 23 5/8 x 29 1/2 inches. Photo by Damian GriffithsEternal return (2024), terracotta vessel, plaster, wood, steel, resin clay modeling paste, and acrylic paint, 23 5/8 x 42 1/2 x 37 3/4 inches. Photo by Damian GriffithsHerm (2024), terracotta vessel, plaster, wood, steel, resin clay modeling paste, and acrylic paint, 50 x 20 1/8 x 20 7/8 inches. Photo by Damian Griffithsworks and days 2 (2024), plaster, resin clay, paint, 17 7/8 x 17 7/8 x 4 3/8 inches. Photo by Damian GriffithsDetail of works and days 2 (2024), plaster, resin clay, paint, 17 7/8 x 17 7/8 x 4 3/8 inches. Photo by Damian Griffithsworks and days 1 (2024), plaster, resin clay, paint, 18 7/8 x 17 7/8 x 5 1/8 inches. Photo by Damian GriffithsDetail of works and days 1 (2024), plaster, resin clay, paint, 18 7/8 x 17 7/8 x 5 1/8 inches. Photo by Damian GriffithsNext article