AMBER RANE SIBLEY

All That Is and More Below

February 24th - March 27th

FIERMAN presents the New York debut solo exhibition of ceramicist Amber Rane Sibley entitled All That Is and More Below. Sibley’s figurative sculptures, rendered through a masterful array of ceramic techniques, inhabit a fantastical world of ambiguous psychosexual interaction. Comprised of both single figures and intertwined pairs or groups, the landscape of the exhibition is a psychogeography steeped in the visual language of both fairy tales and spiritual ritual. Sibley’s exploration of the visceral potentials of ceramic evinces a sophisticated melding of form and image; the organic strangeness of clay mirrors the biological excesses of human form.

In Muliebral Canker, Sibley has constructed an arm-less nude kneeling female figure, either praying, exhausted, in a position of sexual submission, or melting into herself. The figure’s pink hued, glossy skin is marked with both white and purple drops, frozen in viscous motion, perhaps emanating from the bubbling veil enshrouding her head. A swath of glaze on her leg mimics her barnacled veil; a live woman undergoes a chemical crystallization. In several of her works, for example Intransigent and Generous Helping #1, Sibley presents two figures, one animal-like standing on all fours, the other lying beneath face-up. In many instances drips of candy-like ceramic glaze connect the two figures in a symbiotic and liquidy exchange.

Sibley’s motley crew cohere through her virtuosic use of firing and glazing techniques. The sculptures are all high-fired stoneware, often fired multiple times, and Sibley employs a variety of construction methods, including the wheel, slip-casting, hand-building, and slab and coil construction. She fabricates all of her own glazes, imbuing chemical experimentation with a voluptuous, human vitality.

Amber Rane Sibley (b. 1988, Cape Cod, MA) lives and works in New York. She received a BFA from Hunter College in 2021. FIERMAN will present more of her new sculptures in collaboration with SITUATIONS at the NADA New York art fair in May 2022.