Still Life IV

1994

Elsa Rady’s porcelain vessels merge Asian ceramic tradition with the simplicity of modern European and American design. In the course of her career, Rady began to focus on the sculptural aspects of her work rather than the utilitarian features usually associated with the vessel form. In 1990 she began to assemble her pieces in groups of various sizes. The works of her Still Life series are tableaux in which the individual pieces relate to each other very much as objects in traditional still-life paintings do. In Still Life IV two distinctly different vessels are paired on an aluminum shelf that is attached to a rectangular backdrop, which suggests the clearly defined pictorial plane of a painting.