Joan Lurie is a ceramic artist who builds sculptural forms from porcelain and paper clay. Many of her ideas come from architecture, while the inherent organic quality of clay inevitably brings the work back to soft structures more reminiscent of biological and natural things.
Joan began as a photographer. Her interest in clay grew out of her photographs, which incorporated images of ceramics along with other crafts; micro and macro photographs of biological and plant forms, as well as buildings and technological objects.
During the past nine years, Joan has worked exclusively in ceramics. While her chosen medium has changed, Joan’s aesthetic interest has remained consistent, focused on the relationship between human made and natural forms. Many of her ceramic pieces simultaneously evoke built structures, as well as skeletons, plants and other biological forms and objects.
Born in New York City and currently working in Brooklyn, NY, Joan studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology (BFA) and New York University and the International Center of Photography (MA). Her ceramic work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at The International Festival of Postmodern Ceramics in Croatia, Feats of Clay in Lincoln, CA and, most recently, Shop Art in Brooklyn.