Michael Frimkess

Barbati Gallery is pleased to present Michael Frimkess' first solo exhibition since 1982.

“The background was like a home-movie screen: white and sparkly. Just really bright white. It flickered and shone. The whole moment happened so fast, but I have to describe it slowly. It was something I saw with my inner eye.”

Inner Eye is a fitting show title for Michael Frimkess who often refers to this term when describing a vision from his first peyote journey as a young man. Frimkess describes the vision, “It was a narrow cylinder. And the cylinder grew, it blossomed out leaving a funnel lip. It was a beautiful shape. And there was no one throwing it. It was throwing itself. I was seeing this all clearly and I wasn’t a potter, I had never thrown a pot.”

Inner Eye will highlight work spanning over forty years including drawings on paper, early vessels thrown when Frimkess was learning in the late sixties, glaze tests, and fully mastered ginger jars produced decades after. Inner Eye underscores Frimkess' achievements in the ceramics field, showcasing his understanding and mastery of the vessel through throwing without water on the potter's wheel, accomplishing what he saw in his inner eye.

On the occasion of the exhibition, Barbati Gallery will present the first career retrospective monograph on the L.A.-based ceramic artist Michael Frimkess. This bespoke limited edition published by Roman Skelly, the new imprint of Darren Romanelli and Ian Skelly, will be available for sale at the gallery.

Michael Frimkess (b. 1937, Los Angeles, CA) is an American ceramic artist living in Venice, California, with his wife and sixty year collaborator Magdalena Suarez Frimkess. In the 1950s Frimkess became the youngest person to receive a scholarship to the Otis Art Institute and studied under Peter Voulkos, a prominent figure in the California clay movement. Frimkess mastered throwing dry clay techniques with hard clay and no water replicating classical forms like Greek volute kraters, Zuni pots, and Chinese ginger jars resulting in remarkably light, thin walled vessels. Frimkess often adorned his vases with whimsical collaged imagery referencing history, American culture, jazz and politics. Frimkess’ work can be found in the Smithsonian Institution, American Craft Museum, National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto Japan, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among other institutions.