Nurielle Stern

Toronto-based ceramic sculptor and installation artist Nurielle Stern was invited to present a response to the influential contemporary artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei’s exhibition Ai Weiwei: Unbroken, which opened on Feb. 28 at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. Her exhibition Unswept Floor (Tesserae) is displayed in a case outside the entrance to the Ai Weiwei exhibition. Stern says she took inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman unswept floor mosaics that depict objects such as the debris of a banquet that would normally be swept away on the mosaic tile floor to look real. “I took that idea and made it into an artist’s metaphorical studio floor … and a more intimate perspective of ceramics.”

Stern graduated from OCAD in 2007 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in sculpture and installation, but realized she was missing technical expertise so she enrolled in Sheridan College’s ceramics program, part of the School of Craft and Design, and later headed to Alfred University in New York to attend its renowned MFA program in ceramic art. Stern uses porcelain in her work and mixes a lot of her own clays and glazes from scratch. “There is this whole aspect of chemistry and alchemy … you can mix all these materials together and you put it in the fire and it comes out and it’s not quite what you expect but you can keep tinkering with it until you get something pretty spectacular. She says she likes to take risks with material just to see what happens. “I tend to break all the rules and I work in an unconventional way and ceramics lets me do that. I then get a result that’s really luscious and I thrive on that.”

Stern’s studio is located at Artscape Case Goods Warehouse in the Distillery District in Toronto. You can view her exhibit at the Gardiner Museum until June 9.