Reflection, Ceramic Sculpture, 18″ x 18″ x 9″, 2021
Place Set 1, Ceramic Vessels, 2022
Place Set 2, Ceramic Vessel, 2022
Untitled Set, Ceramic Vessels, 2022
Bowl, Ceramic Vessel, 2022
Platter, Ceramic Vessel, 2022
Platter, Ceramic Vessel, 2022
Serving Plate, Ceramic Vessel, 2022
[BFA] Ceramics
[Minor] Business Administration
My studio is a controlled, tight environment. This control is an important aspect of my work and affects the finished product in both form and surface. Making for me started off as a coping mechanism, not always a conscious one. “Being able to have complete control over something only I can mess up.” My focus, while making my work, is on processes and technique. I am constantly developing new technologies as part of my studio practice, whether it’s slab building with tar paper or making something perfectly one time to then create molds from. Once I’ve mastered a series of techniques or processes, I then begin to develop emotional and aesthetic content around them.
My design-oriented vessels are modern, geometric, and booming with color. The patterns and colors in the surfaces of my vessels relate to design and fashion, not from a fashion runway point of view, but from the viewpoint of a specific community of people, being themselves, not hiding or taming their self-expression or “loud personalities” for the comfort of others. This sense of fashion heavily influences aspects of shape, color, and pattern that are represented prominently in the vessels. I introduce figurative sculpture as a way of presenting similar content in a more, narrative, relatable way. The portrait represents hairstyle as a basis of self-identity. Textured hair is a part of my everyday life but is viewed and talked about very differently outside of my culture and is still never quite understood or accepted.
Originally from Omaha, NE, Rayetta Benson is a graduating BFA art student with a focus in ceramics. During high school Ray won many gold and silver scholastic keys, received a ‘five’ on her advanced placement art portfolio (the highest score you can obtain for an AP credit course), and earned the opportunity to exhibit her work in New York City. During her time at UNL, Ray has been nominated for an Elgas Promise Award, was awarded multiple project, research, and travel grants, and exhibited multiple times in the Medici and Eisentrager-Howard Galleries. Ray hopes to one day own and operate a community-based art gallery and studio.