Chris Garofalo
Chris Garofalo. arengu, 2020. Underglazed procelain, 7 x 4 x 5 inches, each.
Chris Garofalo. kivipisaraid, 2020. partially glazed stoneware, amazonite beads, 16 x 7 x 7 inches.
Chris Garofalo. giiwanimoshki wasabiig (liar's web), 2020. Partially underglazed stoneware, glass leaves and beads, peridot beads, nylon thread, 11 x 11 x 7 inches.
Chris Garofalo. lille brevifolia bosc, 2015. Glazed porcelain, 14 x 7 x 4 inches.
Chris Garofalo. carciofo cylindropunta ossibus, 2015. Partially glazed porcelain, 9 x 4 x 4 inches.
Chris Garofalo. diatomenblüte, 2020. Underglazed and glazed porcelain, metal beads, 9 x 7 x 7 inches.
Chris Garofalo. ei oska seletada, 2020. Unglazed and underglazed porcelain, amazonite beads, 16 x 7 x 5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. hvalp pukoko, 2015. Glazed porcelain, 12 x 5.5 x 5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. viis nõot, 2020. Porcelain 9 x 3 x 4 inches.
Chris Garofalo. brigau a phlu, 2020. Partially glazed and underglazed porcelain, 11 x 9 x 2 inches.
Chris Garofalo. mollusks annelida, 2007. Glazed and unglazed porcelain, 14 x 5 x 5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. korallelundid, 2020. Partially glazed porcelain, 5 x 3 x 2 inches, each.
Chris Garofalo. gegradueer slym vorm, 2020. Unglazed porcelain, 14 x 11.5 x 4 inches.
Chris Garofalo. verenvuoto amor kukka, 2020. Glazed porcelain, glass and copper beads, 17 x 5 x 5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. atoomknoppen, 2020. Partially underglazed porcelain, bone, metal and glass beads, 19 x 4 x 4 inches.
Chris Garofalo. gulugod o tribo, 2020. Unglazed porcelain, glass beads, 26 x 9 x 3/8 inches.
Chris Garofalo. dưa đắng đồng, 2020. Glazed stoneware, 8.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. yoovzoo (betterflies), 2020. Glazed porcelain, 4 x 3 x 2.5 inches, each.
Chris Garofalo. pilkkuvala, 2020. Glazed porcelain, glass beads, 10 x 6 x 3.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. Pselaphognatha Protura, 2010. Porcelain, 6.5 x 4.5 x 3.5 inches
Chris Garofalo. nuxibranchia, 2007. Glazed porcelain, 7 x 3.5 x 3 inches.
Chris Garofalo. sebum rozgwiazda plaag, 2015. Glazed porcelain, 10 x 10 x 2 inches.
Chris Garofalo. zatvorski gomoljka, 2020. Underglazed stoneware, 11.5 x 5.5 x 4 inches.
Chris Garofalo. strobilus rosaceae, 2020. Glazed porcelain, 4 x 3 x 2 inches, each.
Chris Garofalo. fo espwa (false hope), 2020. Glazed porcelain, 8 x 7 x 4 inches.
Chris Garofalo. roheline lilla penni, 2020. Glazed porcelain, 8 x 6.5 x 7 inches.
Chris Garofalo. dijatoma, 2020. Glazed porcelain, chrome frame, stainless steel wire, 14 x 14 x 14 inches.
Chris Garofalo. alveare bozzolo, 2020. Partially glazed porcelain, copper and porcelain beads, 6 x 6 x 4.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. blaarslug, 2020. Partially glazed and underglazed porcelain, 5.5 x 4 x 2.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. cacto bulboso, 2020. Glazed porcelain, 11 x 4 x 2.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. corallimycorrhizae, 2012. Glazed porcelain, 7 x7 x 5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. dyfrffrwyth, 2020. Glazed porcelain, 5 x 2.5 x 2.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. fwi twopikal, 2020. Glazed porcelain, 5.5 x 5 x 2 inches.
Chris Garofalo. gwallt gwyllt, 2020. Glazed porcelain, 8.5 x 7.5 x 2.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. kuldne tükid, 2020. Glazed porcelain, brass beads, 32 x 3 inches.
Chris Garofalo. lakrdijaš, 2020. Glazed and underglazed stoneware, bone and porcelain beads, 7 x 3 x 3 inches.
Chris Garofalo. lehtpuu kilpkonn, 2020. Underglazed porcelain, 7 x 7 x 5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. lisää etana, 2020. Glazed and underglazed porcelain, 4 x 3 x 3 inches.
Chris Garofalo. meduus kvintetile, 2020. Glazed and unglazed procelain, 8 x 2 x 2 inches.
Chris Garofalo. monocotyledon, 2020. Underglazed porcelain, 6.5 x 6 x 3 inches.
Chris Garofalo. oë wyd oop, 2020. mostly unglazed porcelain, glass beads, 15 x 10 x 5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. paraplupaddenstoel, 2020. Glazed an underglazed porcelain, indian agate and metal beads, 6.5 x 4 x 4 inches.
Chris Garofalo. päris mürk, 2020. Glazed porcelain, 15 x 12 x 6 inches.
Chris Garofalo. pealiskaudne, 2020. Glazed porcelain, glass beads, 25 x 3.5 x 3.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. spelta criostail zucchero, 2015. Glazed porcelain, 8 x 5.5 x 2 inches.
Chris Garofalo. pop oko, 2020. Underglazed porcelain, glass leaves, 17 x 6 x 6 inches.
Chris Garofalo. robotsko oko, 2020. Glazed stoneware, fimo, glass beads, 7.5 x 3.5 x 2.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. rosie je lekníny, 2007. Glazed porcelain, 5 x 5 x 2 inches, each.
Chris Garofalo. sammaltükid, 2020. Glazed porcelain, glass beads, 17 x 2.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. šišarka bombone, 2020. Unglazed stoneware, indian agate beads, 18 x 4.5 x 4.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. skerp strepe, 2020. Underglazed porcelain, 4 x 2 x 2.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. spotter vorm, 2020. Underglazed porcelain, 5 x 4.5 x 3.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. surinaamse zeekilpkonn, 2020. Underglazed porcelain, 11 x 11 x 5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. tanssipuu, 2020. Underglazed stoneware, 12 x 9 x 4 inches.
Chris Garofalo. valkaistu jäännökset minun todellinen pohjoiseen (the bleached remains of my true north), 2020. Partially glazed porcelain, glass beads, 36 x 3 x 3 inches.
Chris Garofalo. zwangere kikker paddestoel, 2020. Underglazed porcelain, glass beads, 9 x 3.5 x 3.5 inches.
Chris Garofalo. tühi kest, 2020. Glazed porcelain, indian agate and glass beads, 15-13 x 3 x 3 inches, each.
Chris Garofalo. tühi kilpkonn, 2020. Underglazed porcelain, glass beads, epoxy, 11 x 11 x 3 inches.
Chris Garofalo. zo zetwal, 2020. Unglazed porcelain, 6.5 x 2 inches, each.
Chris Garofalo. puf ribu, 2017. Glazed porcelain, 10 x 6 x 8 inches.
Rhona Hoffman Gallery is delighted to present our seventh solo exhibition with Chicago-based artist Chris Garofalo. For the past three decades, Garofalo has developed her signature form of ceramic sculptures inspired by the flora and fauna of the world’s ever-changing and increasingly precarious ecosystems, from the rainforest to the desert to the depths of the ocean. Garofalo fires multiple layers of glaze on her handworked clay forms, rendering lifelike skins, shells, and membranes that appear to have grown organically. Her specimens recall real-life organisms, but all of the sculptures are born of Garofalo’s imagination, playing with and transcending standard scientific classification. Animated by theories of evolution and metamorphosis, the works seem almost to breathe, grow, mutate, and respond to their environments.
For “falling up” Garofalo has crafted an extraordinarily delicate installation of ceramic forms that hang from the ceiling and walls of the gallery, in what the artist considers its own ecosystem. The fragility and contingency of the works invoke the natural environment that inspired it, serving to remind us that humans present both an existential threat to our planet’s biodiversity as well as the greatest hope for its preservation. “Whether blossom or human being, life is fragile and temporary,” Garofalo writes. “‘falling up” invites us to undo conventional notions of human primacy and separation from nature, to embrace the profound porosity between categories of living beings, becoming more empathetic members of the entire biological community.”
__
Chris Garofalo (b. Springfield, Illinois) creates ceramic sculptures that draw inspiration from plant and animal forms. Following extensive experience with printmaking and graphic design, Garofalo was introduced to ceramics. An avid gardener, she took quickly to the medium, finding the two things very similar, especially in smell (the clay and the dirt) and the condition in which both activities leave her hands. Inspired by watching the way plants grow, Chris Garofalo attends to the principle properties of development, but disregards traditional behavioral, environmental, genetic, and mating patterns to reimagine an evolutionary history of our planet filled with forms that are at once recognizable and unidentifiable.
Garofalo earned a BFA from Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. She has exhibited her ceramic sculptures since 1991 holding exhibitions at galleries and institutions internationally including Bureau Gallery, New York; R & Company, New York; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, Illinois; Mathew Marks Gallery, New York; Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon; Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburg; Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco; Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago; and Foundazione Mazzullo, Taormino, Sicily. In 2007, she received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painter and Sculptor Award. Chris Garofalo has lived and worked in Chicago since 1980.