"The Brooklyn-based artist is formally trained as a painter and self-taught as a ceramicist, and she fuses the two modes of working into a complementary practice. Hier begins by sculpting a wide range of forms, and after several rounds of firing with both handmade and commercially available glazes, she adds a painting. The pairings arise intuitively, sometimes through free association, trial and error, or by homing in on a color."
"Earlier works include a decadent, three-tiered cake piped not with pillowy buttercream but instead trimmed with olives, sausages, and thin slices of prosciutto. There's also a thick head of green cabbage that reveals a trio of ravenous chicks roosted in its core. While the artist's depictions in both clay and paint are lifelike, the juxtapositions push the works firmly into the realm of the surreal and ambiguous."
"Many of the works shown here will debut this month at Anton Kern Gallery for Hier's solo exhibition, Swan Song. Nodding to the ancient Greek belief that the otherwise "mute" birds sing just before their deaths, the exhibition takes transformation as its starting point. Elements of Dutch still lifes appear, too, as flowers bloom and pastries and coffee are consumed across a picnic-esque surface."
Stephanie Temma Hier blends painting and ceramics, creating hybrid objects that transform everyday items into uncanny, surreal compositions. She sculpts diverse forms, fires them with handmade and commercial glazes, and finishes pieces with painted surfaces. Pairings often emerge intuitively through free association, trial and error, or color-driven choices. Earlier works juxtapose culinary and natural motifs—cakes trimmed with olives and prosciutto, cabbages harboring chicks—rendered lifelike yet ambiguous. The Swan Song exhibition references transformation and Dutch still lifes, repeating motifs such as a swan across domestic tableaux that unsettle through familiar-yet-strange juxtapositions.
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