See/Saw:Collaborative Play by Ruth Easterbrook and Kevin Snipes

The Jane Hartsook Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of individual and collaborative work by Kevin Snipes and Ruth Easterbrook. In this exhibition, the artists explore the interplay between form and narrative by combining Easterbrook’s mastery of form and lush, tapestry-inspired glazes with Snipes’ visually complex and compelling narratives in joyfully experimental ways. This exhibition marks the first time this unique collection of collaborative work will be shown.

Snipes and Easterbrook’s collaboration began with a playful moment, when Snipes was inspired to use a postcard of Easterbrook’s work in a collage.  Easterbrook and Snipes began creating ceramic forms and exchanging them, each adding a surface to the other’s form. Facilitated by the proximity of their studios—both artists are at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia—their ideas, forms, and surfaces “ping-ponged” back and forth, with each finished work being the result of a call and response between the artists. This process necessarily required improvisation, which gave both artists new perspectives about their work.

Ruth Easterbrook is an artist based out of Philadelphia. She earned her MFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and her BFA from Syracuse University. She has shown her work across the United States, including at Market House Craft Center (Lancaster, PA; 2020), Charlie Cummings Gallery (Gainesville, FL; 2020), and Red Lodge Clay Center (Red Lodge, MT; 2019). She has held residencies at the Harvard Ceramics Program, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, and was honored as an Emerging Artist by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts in 2020.

Kevin Snipes is an artist based out of Philadelphia. He studied ceramics at the University of Florida and earned his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. He has shown his work across the United States, including at Harvey Preston Gallery (Aspen, CO; 2021), The Clay Studio (Philadelphia, PA; 2021), and Wesleyan College (Macon, GA; 2020). He has held numerous artist residencies, including at the Archie Bray Foundation, the American Museum of Ceramic Art, and the Northern Clay Center.

Images below: Alan Wiener, courtesy Greenwich House Pottery 2024.