Parasitic Vessels: Forms of Disuse
Parasitic Vessels: Forms of Disuse is a series of homologous ceramic forms that play host to a parasite that evolves throughout them, reassigning their anticipated functional value as they morph into more complicated bodies. A parasitic relationship is characterized by one organism, the parasite, drawing its resources from another, the host, in ways that exist on a spectrum of symbiotic to malevolent. A parasite can evolve over different hosts due to its impulse to regulate its host body’s immune responses. In these ceramic bodies, the parasite is tender in the way it clings to its imagined life sources while it is aggressive in the ways it renders them objects of dysfunction. The ambiguous relationship between parasitic growth and form in this series is meant to evoke a polarizing response; the viewer may be enticed or repulsed by their visual idiosyncrasies. The hosts’ mutations invite new ways of engaging with and appreciating the forms they occupy. The imagined user becomes the viewer as the bowls’ purpose shifts from holding to being held. As familiar unobtrusive objects are transfigured into curious forms of consideration, I aim to cultivate a space where we are reminded to explore the simple predictable forms our lives orbit around.
Ellie Levy is a ceramic artist from Los Angeles, California, focused on elevating conventional forms through applying underglaze surface treatments. The imposed peculiarity she elicits in her surface designs shifts their value from being forms to engage with in predictable utilitarian ways to forms that offer space for more exploration and consideration on account of their unfamiliar features.