The A|AH|D Gallery at Riley Hall is proud to announce From Outside to Within - an exhibition of artworks by Bill Kremer. The exhibition opens February 23, 2023, and will run until March 23, 2023. A closing reception will be held on Thursday, March 23, from 5 pm to 7 pm.
William Kremer was born October 29, 1946 in Superior, Wisconsin. He served in the Army National Gard from 1964-69. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Superior In 1969 with a BFA degree In ceramics and painting. Kremer was accepted into the fine arts graduate program at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 1969. He received an M.A. degree in 1970 and graduated with an MFA degree in 1971.
Kremer was hired to teach ceramics and sculpture at Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, Louisiana in 1971. In 1973 he was hired to teach at the University of Notre Dame and to set up a ceramics program in Notre Dame’s Old Field House. He spent ten years building kilns, tables, shelves, potter’s wheels and acquired studio equipment. During this time the ceramic graduate program grew to twelve students. Six National Ceramic Summer workshops were held featuring the best-known ceramic artists of the day. In 1984 the ceramic and art studio programs were moved to the renovated Riley Hall of Art & Design and the Old Field House was torn down. In his forty-nine-year career at Notre Dame, more than forty-five graduate students have gone on to take teaching positions around the country.
Kremer’s artistic activity in ceramic art represents both sculpture and traditional pottery. He is known for his work and innovations using large-scale molds as a means to construct sculptural vessel forms. The resulting works are fired in a wood-fired anagama kiln. Kremer’s work has been exhibited around the country and has been represented by numerous galleries. His work has been shown in more than one hundred and fifty exhibitions and workshops and featured in Ceramics Monthly magazine.
FROM OUTSIDE TO WITHIN
I describe my work as sculptural vessels. These forms relate to reflections of both classical pottery vessels and the abstracted human figure. The works are composed of gestural lines combined with
convoluting planes. Painted brush strokes integrate the vitality of line and form.
Because of the large scale of the sculptures, an interactive perception is formed with the viewer. Both the relative scale and the awareness of the inside volume resonates the structural skin of the forms from the outside to within. The sculptural vessels are fired in a large thirty-foot long anagama wood- firing kiln for five days. As the flame and fly ash flow over the vessels, a flash of glaze creates a dimensional pattern from the single direction of fire. The finished work reflects the results of the firing process and evokes a form defining directional light.