Adam Knoche: Bleached

October 15 - December 30, 2022

Opening reception with the artist: Saturday, October 15 from 5 to 7 P.M.

Liliana Bloch Gallery is pleased to present Adam Knoche’s ceramic art series Bleached in its last exhibition of 2022 alongside Simon Vega’s The Return of Prospero: Tales of the Crypto-Colonized.

The notion of denaturing and our desire to create order and subdue our environment contradicts the very rationale of our existence. To bleach, literally denatures life and living organisms to create sterility which is far removed from the wild and natural design of our environment. The Bleached series is an abstraction of the artist’s perception of contemporary culture.

The works presented show raw, vulnerable and exposed surfaces. Drippy glazes and heavy texture give the viewer a tactile experience that is lost in most of our daily encounters. Cracks, fissures, and the broken are celebrated as imperfect and organic.

This series is a result of Knoche’s research over the last decade in which he explored the boundaries of alchemy with dry ceramic materials as an art form. In it, the artist accesses the voice of ceramic material with a new method of research that focuses on raw, pulverized ceramics.

Knoche’s approach to ceramic art is derived from materiality, experimentation, memories and travel. He employs both traditional methods of making ceramics and nontraditional methods that he has researched and developed over years of working with clay. Knoche’s use of pulverizing clay into powder to create fractured and raw surfaces is a new technique that gives his work a unique and authentic aesthetic.

Born in 1986, Adam Knoche is an American ceramic artist who has been working in the ceramic art field since 2009. He received his Master of Fine Art in ceramics from Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville in 2014, and his Bachelor of Fine Art in ceramics from Ball State University in 2010. Adam’s career started in Greenwich House Pottery in New York City where he was employed as Studio and Fabrications Manager.

Knoche has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally. Most notably, Adam represented the United States at the Korean International Ceramic Biannale in South Korea in 2019. In 2020-2022, he exhibited at Galeria Masota in Mexico City, Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, Puls Gallery in Brussels, RO2 Gallery in Dallas TX, CICA Museum in Seoul Korea, and AKAR in Iowa, Steinbeisser in Amsterdam, Direcktorenhaus, Berlin, Atilier Odem, Stockhold.

Knoche’s work has been most recently published in Studio Potter Magazine (2021) Architectural Digest, Spain (2020), Attitude (2020), Milk Magazine (2020) and Vogue Living (2020).

Knoche has also received many awards and grants throughout the years such as Emerging Artist for Ceramics Monthly, May Issue (2018), Best in Show, Light, Time and Space Gallery (2017), Thomas D. Gipe Sculpture award (2014) and the Research Grant for Graduate Students (2013).

Adam Knoche lives and maintains his own studio practice in McKinney, TX.

Image: Sherbert Rain, 2022, Cone Six Oxidation Fired, Ram pressed Porcelain, stains, glaze, 9 x 11 x 11 in.