Tom Bartel: Figure as Memento

In Figure as Memento, Tom Bartel frames the human figure as an object of remembrance—both a physical presence and a symbolic marker of time, experience, and absence. Drawing on decades of working with figuration, Bartel revisits and reexamines past forms through a contemporary lens, using dolls, toys, animals, and fragmented bodies as stand-ins for the human condition. The exhibition was made possible by a year-long sabbatical from Ohio University, allowing Bartel to devote himself fully to studio work and to reflect on themes that have long shaped his practice, including memory, identity, fertility, mortality, and the paradoxes between beginnings and endings.

Through richly layered ceramic surfaces and a balance of intuitive process and disciplined iteration, Bartel’s work invites viewers to consider how time marks the body—much like worn objects or eroded materials tell their own histories. Influenced by personal life, including parenthood, as well as a mid-career survey spanning 25 years of work, the exhibition weaves together references to childhood, aging, care, and vulnerability. Rather than offering fixed meanings, Bartel embraces ambiguity, allowing form, surface, and material to open space for reflection, empathy, and personal interpretation.

— MassMusings Podcast — Presented by the Massillon Museum