Lesley Katzen is a Seattle, Washington based ceramicist and sculptor who works in decorative and functional stoneware and figurative sculpture. 

Group Exhibitions:

• Collective Visions Gallery, 18th annual CVG Juried Show, Bremerton, Washington, January 2025

• Siderail Collective,  Seattle, Washington, November/December 2024 

• Ghost Gallery, Seattle, Washington, October 2024 

• Portals - Thurston County Museum of Fine Art, Olympia, Washington, April 26th-28th, 2024

• Olympia Armory Intervention - Thurston County Museum of Fine Art, Olympia, Washington, July 8th-15th, 2023 

• Gallery Boom, Olympia, Washington, 2023 - June 2024

Artist’s Statement:

___

'et sum, quod digitis quinque legatur, onus'

or 

'and I am a burden which could be gathered in five fingers'  

-- Sextus Propertius: The Elegies, book 4, poem 11

___

I explore the well-tread theme of mortality in creating hand built jars in the style of mostly Western funerary art, Memento Mori ,and Vanitas.  

I find ceramics a very concrete way of working through grief in a way that can be quite childlike. 

I usually begin with a memory or a feeling that I can’t process - and so aim to make physical, to give it form and life and space, volume. 

My process serves as a balm; I seek permanence, stability in the creation of a vessel - from a passive wet earth to a thing which I believe to be worthy of three dimensions. 

This feels like real power in a world where we are often so powerless.

gothboxceramics@)