Remnants/ Relics/ Residue - Julia Kerley - Within a Body Within a World

Within a Body Within a World, 2024

5' x 3.5', Glazed ceramic, wooden platform, kiln bricks

$2,500

Artist Statement

Grieving rituals/ the memory of water/ solid on the outside but hollow on the inside/ two into one/ it’s the distance that lets me love you/ it’s in that space between us where my love now lies. 

A remnant of my grief and the memories that now hold us together/apart– can I make a memory in 3D and can that make me feel close to you again? Or is this now merely a relic that holds the myth that was your presence? A rough surface texture that I can slide down on my greasy back, a twist that makes me fold back into you. I will reach for you in every lifetime and I know you reach back, for it’s the only way we know how to survive– no matter how imperfect and messy and splintered it makes us. 

Julia Kerley (Los Angeles, 1999) is an Oakland based sculptor working primarily with clay. Through a process based practice they explore themes including symbol-making, personal memory, objecthood, and ritual. Often constructing heavily textured, modular ceramic vessels based on historic references, the resulting objects represent experiments in the invention of self and the complexity of identity. Through this queering between self and object, Julia re-creates these ritual objects in service of a re-imagined history rich in multiplicity.