
CONVERSATIONS IN CLAY
KATHERINE GLENDAY & PETER SPELIOPOULOS
07.08.2021
Ateliers Courbet presents Conversations in Clay — A dialogue between South African ceramicist, Katherine Glenday and multidisciplinary artist, Peter Speliopoulos, about their relationships with clay, their processes, and their inspirations.

About Katherine Glenday:
Living and working in Cape Town, South Africa, Katherine Glenday has continued to explore and hone the materiality of porcelain for over forty years. The artist has never ceased to pursue an unwavering path, exploring the material’s wide range of expressive qualities, while continuing to learn different time-honored techniques through ongoing collaboration with master ceramicists around the world. Highly informed by the visual arts — painting and drawing —, her porcelain works explore the contrasts of emphasized organic textures on soft skin-like surfaces. Each of her pieces defies the materiality of the porcelain, stretching the matter to its thinnest; their translucent skin enthralls the natural light, while their silhouettes embody the artist’s gesture as it quietly evokes movement.
Continuing a six-year-long collaboration between the New York gallery and the artist, Glenday’s third solo exhibition at Courbet, titled “Relationalities” (which opened in the front gallery on April 29 and has migrated to the center gallery) explores a sculptural body of work incorporating autobiographical elements from the artist’s ancestry dating back to the 18th-century Dutch trade of Chinese porcelain. The works in the exhibition are a collection of cast vessels along with wheel-thrown porcelain vessels with endemic minerals and oxides gleaned from the natural world around her, acting as paint upon the delicate, meticulously thrown porcelain canvas.
About Peter Speliopoulos:
Peter Speliopoulos is a multidisciplinary artist, born in Springfield, Massachusetts, of Greek descent, who currently lives and works between New York and Patmos, Greece. He received his BFA from the Parsons School of Design and established an international career as a high fashion designer and costume designer for opera and modern ballet. His designs and creative direction have inspired the collections of Christian Dior, Cerruti and Donna Karan among others; his costume designs significantly figured in the work of director/choreographers Karole Armitage and Luca Veggetti.
On June 10th, his sophomore show, CHTHONIC, opened at Ateliers Courbet. Created throughout the evolution of the pandemic in his Hudson Valley Cellar Studio, the work is an interpretive approach to the Primordial Gods of the Greek underworld. Full of texture, sweeping forms, and personality these works highlight his passion for craftsmanship, organic textures and his long standing fascination for and experimentation with the medium. This collection of highly textured and adorned vessels reflects the artist’s interest in the malleability and tactile expressions of clay as well as a personal and contemporary investigation of masculinity, femininity, and the time honored techniques of the traditional wheel-thrown forms of Antiquity.
Works on View
KG | 210401
CHTHONIC VESSEL 25
KG | 210402
CHTHONIC VESSEL 01
KG | 210403
CHTHONIC VESSEL 17
KG | 210404
CHTHONIC VESSEL 11
CHTHONIC VESSEL 28
KG | 210405
CHTHONIC VESSEL 05
KG | 210406
CHTHONIC VESSEL 09
CHTHONIC VESSEL 04
KG | 210407
CHTHONIC VESSEL 21
KG | 210408
KG | 210409
CHTHONIC VESSEL 51
CHTHONIC VESSEL 42
CHTHONIC VESSEL 15
KG | 210410
CHTHONIC VESSEL 03
KG | 210411
CHTHONIC VESSEL 06
CHTHONIC VESSEL 02
KG | 210412
CHTHONIC VESSEL 16
KG | 210413
KG | 210414
CHTHONIC VESSEL 40
KG | 210415
CHTHONIC VESSEL 10
KG | 210416
CHTHONIC VESSEL 07
CHTHONIC VESSEL 22
CHTHONIC VESSEL 08
KG | 210417
KG | 210418
CHTHONIC VESSEL 48
KG | 210419
CHTHONIC VESSEL 46
CHTHONIC VESSEL 12
KG | 210420
KG | 210421
CHTHONIC VESSEL 14
KG | 210422
CHTHONIC VESSEL 33
CHTHONIC VESSEL 36
KG | DRIPS
KG | 210424
CHTHONIC VESSEL 35
CHTHONIC VESSEL 27
CHTHONIC VESSEL 44
KG | 210425
KG | 210426
CHTHONIC VESSEL 34
CHTHONIC VESSEL 13
CHTHONIC VESSEL 47
KG | 210427
CHTHONIC VESSEL 39
CHTHONIC VESSEL 43
KG | 210428
CHTHONIC VESSEL 37
KG | 210429
CHTHONIC VESSEL 41
CHTHONIC VESSEL 50
KG | 210430
CHTHONIC VESSEL 18
KG | 210431
CHTHONIC VESSEL 49
KG | 210432
KG | 210433
CHTHONIC VESSEL 20
KG | 210434
CHTHONIC VESSEL 19
CHTHONIC VESSEL 23
CHTHONIC VESSEL 24
CHTHONIC VESSEL 26
CHTHONIC VESSEL 29
CHTHONIC VESSEL 30
CHTHONIC VESSEL 31
CHTHONIC VESSEL 32
CHTHONIC VESSEL 38
CHTHONIC VESSEL 45
CHTHONIC VESSEL 52
KG | 210435
KG | 210901
KG | 210902
KG | 210903
KG | 210904