In my ceramic paintings I explore how light interacts with color as it falls across a hand-built surface. I press clay together, piece by piece, in a process of unfolding. Embracing the organic imperfections and poetic irregularities of clay, edges warp and sometimes crack. Oil paint sets the surfaces aglow in undulating fields of matte pigment. I mine the architecture of color in Sienese paintings from the 13th-15th centuries, extracting moments of luminous color which convey both physical and spiritual realities. A change in color also occurs from the presence and direction of light, adding complexity to the forms. Illuminated and shadowed, their presence oscillates depending on the environment. Painted in daylight hours in layered compressions of time, each painting becomes a distillation of landscapes, evoking memories of color and qualities of light. 

Marla Sweitzer (b. 1989 Sarasota, FL) is an artist based in Fresno, CA. She received her MFA from the University of Tennessee (2020) and a BA from Centre College (2011). Her visual language is rooted in an early engagement with landscape painting. Each ceramic painting acts as a walled form on which light illuminates the subtleties of color and surface — blurring the distinction between architecture and landscape. Recent solo exhibitions include Warping the Distances, Art Space Gallery (Fresno), Sight Lines, Housewright Gallery (Seattle) and ground matter, Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture (Knoxville). Recent group exhibitions include Innocent Pleasures Suit Me, Warbling Collective (London) and Promises, Jason McCoy Gallery (NYC). 

masweitzer [at] gmail [dot] com
@marlasweitzer