Courtesy of the College for Creative Studies.
“My life and generation,” notes Ebitenyefa Baralaye, “dwell in the negotiation of fragmented and transitional presence.”¹ Baralaye knows whereof he speaks: he was born in Nigeria and spent time in the Caribbean before studying at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He now lives in Detroit, teaching at the College for Creative Studies. This geographical itinerary has given him an acute sense of relationism—that is, the idea that things take on significance only in context and shift their meanings when they move in cultural space.
Baralaye’s creative practice, which is focused on ceramics but also branches into textiles and metalwork, is an extended meditation on this truth. Images of passage, impermanence, and portability are everywhere in his work: mazes, folding chairs, handwritten signage spotted on the street, stacks and agglomerations of raw material, even a sculptural form inspired by a heartbeat. His Meiping series alludes to the vessel typology of that name—a classic of the Chinese ceramics tradition—recasting it as a head-like object, perhaps an allegorical self-portrait.
Serpent I in terracotta. Designed and made by Ebitenyefa (Ebi) Baralaye, USA, 2019.
22” L x 14” W x 2.5” H
55.9cm L x 35.6cm W x 6.4cm H
SC801
Courtesy of David Klein Gallery