Biography
Tom Bartel is a ceramic sculptor who maintains a studio in Athens, Ohio, where he serves as Professor and Ceramics Chairperson at Ohio University. Bartel’s work has been exhibited extensively, most recently in the solo exhibitions, Mid-Career Survey Exhibition: Figures from Earth, Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT (2024), and Figure as Memento, The Massillon Museum of Art, OH (2025). His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, in over 400 exhibitions, including more than 40 Solo Exhibitions.
His works are constructed to refer to both the body and charged, stylized, surrogates for the body, such as dolls, toys, and figurines. At the core of his work is the human condition, which is used to investigate the concepts of disguise, identity, fertility, and mortality, among others.
Artist’s Statement
Nearly every culture and civilization has posed challenging questions through the creation of human objects. I see ceramics as a tool for confrontation, where artists use this ancient and versatile medium to make commentaries on the human condition.
I draw inspiration from research spanning from antiquity to popular culture, kitsch, and the grotesque. My work is constructed to refer to stylized surrogates for the body, such as dolls, toys, figurines, and other vernacular forms of the human figure. I am interested in the fragmentation, simplification, and exaggeration of the human form, especially how these choices may elicit engagement and empathy. The notion of “the fragment” is both powerful and timely. It can be argued that the figure gains legitimacy as a subject by having something missing from it. I invite the viewer to consider that which is absent, modified, or “abnormal” as being as significant as that which is usually present or “normal.”
A significant aspect of my work stems from the rich ceramic surfaces I continue to develop. I view the surface of the work as the connective tissue between its content and form, where I see my role as artist/craftsperson as a “conduit” between materials and ideas. My attraction to heavily worn surfaces is a byproduct of growing up within a midwestern rust belt landscape, where I viewed such surfaces as formally beautiful while also serving as a poignant reminder of how everything is affected by the passage of time. I develop surfaces by layering and washing away varying degrees of vitreous slip, glaze, underglaze, terra sigillata, and oxides. Via material and process, I aim to reinforce the content of my work through its outermost “skin”. Within this context, I view the marks I make on the figure as corporeal signs for the many ways humans are affected by the passage of time and the accumulation of experiences.
A lifetime of work devoted to examining these themes has provided me with evolving creative threads and ongoing motivation for my studio practice. These powerful, human themes have become more personal as I observe myself and those around me age.
— Tom Bartel