Los Angeles sculptor Ry Rocklen will present a lecture Sept. 9 at 5:30 p.m. as part of the Visiting Artist/Scholar Lecture Series. The lecture, which will be held in Room S151 of the Lamar Dodd School of Art, is open free to the public
Rocklen arrived at UGA at the start of the semester as a visiting artist at the Lamar Dodd School of Art Galleries. During his monthlong residency, Rocklen is working with students to create a new installation of porcelain sculptures. The galleries will host an exhibition opening party for the show Ry Rocklen: Local Color on Sept. 12 from 6-8 p.m.
Rocklen began his career studying with Charles Ray at the University of California, Los Angeles, and continued at the University of Southern California where he received his Master of Fine Arts degree. Rocklen has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, most recently holding solo exhibitions at Praz-Delavallade in Paris, France, and UNTITLED in New York. His work is in the collections of the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the MoCA Library at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Throughout his residency at the LDSOA galleries, Rocklen will create a series of castings from the stuff of Athens and Los Angeles. Treating himself as a found object, Rocklen will exhibit a series of porcelain tiles made from molds of his old clothes.
Rocklen has long worked with the found object, choosing items from everyday life and recasting them in a new material.
“I am attracted to objects that are anachronistic despite their commonality,” Rocklen said. “The objects used in my work are unavoidable.”
