Jan. 19, 2012

HARRISBURG – “Asparagus, Houses and Floating Constructions,” an exhibit by Philadelphia ceramic artist Robert Winokur will be shown at the Rose Lehrman Art Gallery on the Harrisburg Campus of HACC, Feb. 6-March 2.

He will give a free lecture from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, in Whitaker Hall room 214. A reception will follow.

Winokur started his career as a functional potter. In the 1990s he started to work with architectural forms. His symbol of choice became the house. These sculptures are dark in color, somber and introspective, lacking architectural detail. According to Winokur, a house is a kind of vessel. “A house is a unique kind of container. One that is imbued with a deep set of profound and multi-layered psychic associations. To a child a house represents warmth, family, love, security and identity.”  In his more recent work he has set aside houses and adopted a set of imagery that incorporates bright surface color and a more playful energy. These horizontal, floating constructions deal with the nature of contrast. In these works tensile forces are at odds with each other.

Winokur received a master’s degree in art from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred and a bachelor’s degree in fine art from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Upon his retirement in 2005 he was awarded the status of professor emeritus at the Tyler School of Art. Some of Winokur’s numerous awards include a Fellowship in Crafts from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; induction into The American Crafts Council of Fellows; and a Visual Artists Fellowship from The National Endowment for the Arts.

He served as moderator for a panel at the 2010 National Council on Education in the Ceramics Arts Conference and was a designated juror for the McKnight Ceramics Artists Grants in 2008. Throughout his career, Winokur has been involved with The National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts (NCECA).

His work is in many collections, including The Smithsonian Museum of Ceramic Art, The Renwick Collection; The State Cultural Museum in Riga, Latvia; and The American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, Calif.

Winokur’s work has been included in many publications, such as “Contemporary Ceramics” by Emanuel Cooper (Thames and Hudson), “500 Ceramic Sculptures,” edited by Glen R. Brown (Lark Books), “Robert Winokur’s Houses” by Roald Hoffman (“New Ceramics Magazine,” Stuttgart, Germany) and, most recently, in “The Ceramic Bible” by Louisa Taylor (Chronicle Books: San Francisco).