Biography
Benjamin Oswald received his MFA at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and was a recipient of the Robert Weghsteen Memorial Award in ceramics. His practice involves the creation of vessels and sculpture and is an examination of their spaces and interactions. Oswald has won awards both provincially and internationally for his work and has spent time deepening his research interests in ceramics at the International Ceramic Research Centre in Skælskør, Denmark, CPIFAC (Centre Professionnel International de formation aux Arts Céramiques) in Velaine-en-Haye, France and The International Centre for Contemporary Ceramics at Medalta, Canada. He currently works as a professional artist and arts educator in Treaty 6 Territory - Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Artist Statement
My work situates itself at the intersections of art, design, and contemporary craft, and investigates locations where visual language begins to break down. Recent works explore themes of absence, inner space, and resonance using minimalist aesthetics and industrial processes to create carefully profiled objects with the traces of the hand removed. This homage to more reductive, design-based methods reflects my desire to uncover a thing’s underlying structure—then rework and multiply it in combinatory ways to generate rhythms, contrasts, and acts of excavation. While the exterior of a vessel is well defined, its interior is often described as a void or something to be filled. My work asks what is—or was—there, or what we imagine to be there. In this way, I explore the interplay between surface and void, light and darkness, material and immaterial—as a means of navigating the concept of inner space.