Sebastian Stöhrer

If theres an artist whose oeuvre merits the title creation, it is Sebastian Stöhrer. Shaping clayessentially, soilhe molds his denizens: colorful and friendly-looking sculptural beings, some of them enhanced with sticks or branches reminiscent of limbs. Despite their air of levity and humor, they are not the products of mere momentary inspiration or a whim. It takes decades of dedicated experimentation with the kiln based on the millennia-old art of ceramics as well as expert knowledge of chemistry and physics to create such colors and shapes. Stöhrer has been called an alchemist, and indeed he has made it his mission to vindicate this researchers craft, an ancestor of the natural sciences. Alchemy, like Stöhrers oeuvre, combines pure rationality with coincidence and a scintilla of magic. The artist plays an intuitive and sensual game with his clay and the virtually incalculable chromaticity of the glazeschaos, anarchy, and irrepressible urges being an integral dimension of all creation. In Stöhrers denizens, we encounter the embodiments of that creation: likenesses of ourselves and perhaps also heralds of a future more good-natured version.