• Quantum thought Emerging
    • wood kiln fired porcelain, glaze, cast acrylic mass
    • 16" x 14" x 6"
    • $2500
    • The White Queen's Desires
    • Wood Kiln Cone 12 Multiple Fired, Porcelain, Cone 12 Celadon Glaze, Gold, Silver and Copper Leaf
    • 23.5" x 9" x 6"
    • $3500
    • Torso III
    • Wood Kiln Coe 12 Fired, 20% Iron Oxide Clay, Stoneware Clay, Stone, Kiln Brick, Cone 9 Clear Glaze
    • 64" x 16" 12"
    • $10000
    • Crystallization of Thoughts
    • wood kiln fired rands 20% iron oxide clay, acrylic mass
    SOLD
    • Twisted Thoughts Escaping
    • Wood Kiln Cone 10 Fired, Rand's Stoneware, Rand's 20% Iron Oxide Clay
    • 17.5" x 12" x 10"
    • $2500
    • Thoughts Within
    • Wood Kiln Cone 12-14 Fired, 20% Iron Oxide Clay, Cone 9 Clear Glaze, Silver Leaf, Steel
    • 68.5" x 14" x 8"
    • $10000
    • Europa On My Mind: 31415
    • Wood Kiln Fired, Rand's 20% Iron Oxide Clay, Acrylic Mass
    • 14" x 34" x 10
    • $3500

Artist Statement

My ceramic art links to the old. It takes art traditions and mutates them into personal visions. Two keys to understand the thinking behind the way my art moves from traditional to the new come from Leonardo Da Vinci, who wrote that: “man should become universal”, and that one needs to learn as much as possible about as many things as possible too truly understand the world – the Gestalt. Using these related approaches I push the boundaries of what ceramics, as a medium, should become. While linked to traditions past, the ideas and process used in my work stretch the materials’ chemical properties and limits to open potentials for new ceramic aesthetics.

One needs to venture beyond the safety of boundaries to see what is really possible with a medium. This is an uncertain endeavor. It calls up the idea that the opposite ends of the spectrum of fantasy-reality can exist at a single time within the piece of ceramic art. Using a thought and production process that brings my beliefs in scientific studies into the reference frame of ceramic arts provides clearer focus. Out of the uncertainties of the wood kiln’s fiery space of chaotic forces I see my work in the “fantasy” of the viewer’s internal world and the “reality” of the surrounding external universe.

Artist Bio

Mike Rand began exhibiting his ceramic artwork while still in public school. By 1996 his work was exhibited on the national stage. After attaining his Master of Arts degree at Southern Cross University in Lismore, NSW, Australia he began to exhibit internationally. In 2002 Rand returned to the United States of America where he continued exhibiting in group and solo exhibitions. His artwork is part of the permanent collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Dayton Art Institute. His studio and wood-kiln are in the mountains of Colorado.