The Sculpture Center Presents Surface and Structure: Contemporary Ceramics at the Edge of Form

The Sculpture Center (TSC) presents Surface and Structure: Contemporary Ceramics at the Edge of Form, on view January 30 through March 28, 2026, at its University Circle location. The exhibition brings together faculty and alumni artists from the Cleveland Institute of Art, Kent State University, and the University of Akron, highlighting how contemporary ceramic sculpture is evolving through experimentation, material risk, and expressive form.

Surface and Structure foregrounds work that intentionally moves away from traditional ceramic ideals of symmetry, containment, and refinement. The exhibition reflects a distinctly of-the-moment desire to subvert tradition and embrace imperfection, as artists lean into collapse, asymmetry, excess, and surface complexity to explore the relationship between architectural form, vulnerability, and sculptural presence. Clay becomes a site of inquiry, where instability and imperfection are treated as generative forces rather than flaws.

“These works resist being polite or perfected,” said Grace Chin, Executive Director of The Sculpture Center “The artists in this exhibition embrace instability, excess, and visual tension, allowing clay to become expressive, physical, and sometimes deliberately uncomfortable. That discomfort is what invites viewers to slow down, look closer, and engage more deeply with the material.”

Chin added, “Rather than treating ceramics as functional or decorative, this exhibition presents clay as architectural, bodily, and alive with risk. Imperfection isn’t something to be corrected here—it’s where meaning and beauty emerge.”

The exhibition features works by Seuil Chung, Kristen Cliffel, PJ Hargraves, Drew Ippoliti, Peter Christian Johnson, Anna Kruse, Eva Kwong, Keenan O’Toole, Seth Nagelberg, and Phil Soucy.

The exhibition reflects The Sculpture Center’s commitment to championing innovative, boundary-pushing work. Surface and Structure highlights some of the most compelling directions in contemporary sculpture, presenting artists who expand the possibilities of ceramics through experimentation, material rigor, and architectural scale, and inviting audiences to experience the medium as bold, relevant, and of the moment.

About the Sculpture Center

Founded in 1989, The Sculpture Center (TSC) provides critical resources to sculptors during their artistic journeys, advancing the careers of sculpture-specific artists through creation, exhibition, mentoring, and conversation. TSC is one of a few institutions in the country dedicated solely to sculpture. TSC believes that, no matter the stage in their career, artists of all voices and backgrounds need opportunities to create without commercial constraints so that they may contribute in building the communities that we want to live in. Through a year-round series of exhibitions, talks, and events, TSC seeks to become a regionally and nationally recognized cultural space where creative ideas, experiences, and communities connect and flourish. In 2021, TSC launched Spotlight, an annual showcase series that engages a nationally recognized, midcareer sculptor to collaborate with diverse Cleveland communities, culminating in a two-part gallery and outdoor exhibition. The narratives that occur between art and site contribute to national conversations about today’s social issues that affect our lives and communities. Spotlight is accompanied by a rigorous set of community-based programs. For more information, please visit sculpturecenter.org.