Photograph by Danlly Domingo. Courtesy of Patrick Parrish Gallery.
In the hands of Cody Hoyt, pattern and form collide to stunning effect. To make his work, Hoyt first builds slabs from multiple colors of clay, marbling the surface, using inlay, or constructing the thickness out of discrete elements. He then joins these handmade building blocks together into vessels of rigorous architectural quality. The results recall various esoteric moments in ceramic history—agateware from eighteenth-century England, or the dazzling, Op art–inflected ceramics created by British potter Elizabeth Fritsch.
The riddling Dutch printmaker M. C. Escher is another significant progenitor. To the contemporary eye, though, Hoyt’s works may also seem to partake of digital aesthetics, given the swipe and stretch that plays across their surfaces—though of course, they are totally analog. In their eye-bending complexity, and their synthesis of disparate stylistic tropes, Hoyt’s objects assert a vivid contemporaneity.
Untitled (Still Life with Oblique Vessel and Ficus Aspera at Dusk) slab built ceramic vessel with tinted and inlaid clay surface.
Designed and made by Cody Hoyt, USA, 2020.
20” W x 23” H x 7” D
50.8cm W x 58.4cm H x 17.8cm D
SC802
Courtesy of Patrick Parrish Gallery
Untitled Landscape Vessel #6 (Scarlet on Blue Fade) in tinted and inlaid ceramic.
Designed and made by Cody Hoyt, USA, 2021.
23" L x 13" W x 6" H
58.4cm W x 33cm H x 15.2cm D
SC884
Untitled Landscape Vessel #7 (Mazerine on Vermillion Fade) in tinted and inlaid ceramic.
Designed and made by Cody Hoyt, USA, 2021.
23" L x 13" W x 6" H
58.4cm W x 33cm H x 15.2cm D
SC885