WESLEY HARVEY
"afternoon delights"
"afternoon delights"
porcelain, metal, mirror, latex paint
$800 sold
"on a limb" porcelain, glaze, decals $800 sold |
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"teapot trickle fantasy" |
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"the road to love" |
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doll babies |
"tickler teapot" porcelain, glaze, luster feathers, wood, oil-based paint $750 |
peach fuzz
porcelain, glaze, luster, rayon fibers
$250
blue balls
porcelain, glaze, luster
$250
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"glory days"
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"bearsome" |
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"come on baby" |
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gingerbreadman curtain
porcelain, sterling silver
$1,200
Article by Steve Bennett of the San Antonio Express News
http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/visual_arts/article/ceamic-animals-get-frisky-2217667.php
Artist Statement
Afternoon Delights is an exhibition about sexuality through the use of cute and kitsch figurines and animals as symbols and metaphors for the human condition. I want to address the social and cultural differences of “being gay” in a society that is becoming more accepting of what used to be a scarlet letter only worn in the shadows. I want to examine not only the normative behavior but also the deviant lifestyle. I appropriate and reconstruct these love interests of mine from porcelain, a material that holds a higher standard above other clays, to construct narratives, teapots, and objects that take into consideration gender, identity, and sex.
The kitsch object has been a fascination of mine for many years. Pink flamingoes, garden gnomes, and figurines are my love affairs. The trashiness associated to these mass-produced objects is what attracts me. In my world, tawdriness and trashy reign supreme above taste and perfection. Cute, being a close cousin to the kitsch family is equally as “trashy” and another of my love interests. It is an attractive beauty that can be associated with youth and innocence, yet the bunnies, butterflies, and beavers can make you sick to your stomach with their smiling, sinister faces. By incorporating sexuality with these objects, it is like watching a car wreck. You don’t want to look, but cannot help to take a peak that turns into a strong gaze that does not let you look away.
Wesley Harvey
Wesley is originally from Van Buren, Indiana, “the popcorn capital of the world.” He received his BFA in Ceramics in 2002 from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and then received his MFA in Ceramics in 2007 from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Wesley has exhibited his artwork nationally and internationally. His artwork can be found in various publications including 500 Contemporary Ceramic Sculptures and The Essential Guide to Mold Making & Slip Casting and also in the permanent collections of the Art & Artifact Collection at the Kinsey Institute for Research on Sex, Gender, and Reproduction and the Shanghai Museum of Arts & Crafts, as well as collections in China and throughout the United States. He currently lives and works in San Antonio, TX. He teaches at the University of the Incarnate Word and Northwest Vista College.