Steven Benezue

Medium: Ceramics / Sculpture

There is a long tradition of ceramic artist making sculptures out of teapots.With this body of work, I am making teapots out of sculptures. Working with clay can be a very process-driven passion; wedging, centering, throwing, trimming etc. I am working with the traditional methods and processes of making teapots, but I am pushing those processes, distorting their original function and outcome. My teapot sculptures are made to be functional on one level; the spouts are hollow and pour, the lids fit and have proper flanges, the handles are pulled in the traditional method, but the process is carried to an exaggerated extreme. The spouts and handles are twisted so as to be rendered useless. The sculptures are a caricature of the traditional teapot and it’s use.

I do not consider the teapots as functional ware, but as dysfunctional ware. With dysfunction as a basis of the sculptures, I use a sense of poetry to capture some of the great and splendid variations of the human form. Some of the sculptures capture a gesture, an attitude, or a personality that is common among western society. P.S. The teapots may also tell you that they are supposed to be self-portraits of the artist, but do not believe everything that they say!