The Mikhail Zakin Gallery at the Art School at Old Church is pleased to present Louis Mendez: His Hands through Time, a retrospective exhibition showcasing 60 years of achievement in the arts as one of America’s premier ceramic artists. The exhibition is in collaboration with Studio Potter Archive (SPA) and guest curator, Paul Kowalchuk.

Louis Mendez’s career as a potter and sculptor has yielded both international and national critical acclaim through a career spanning six decades. The exhibit celebrates the artistic diversity, technical achievement and spirit brought to clay through Mendez’s hand. The exhibition includes work from Mendez’s academic days at The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University during the early 1950s and continues onward into this most recent decade.

The exhibition showcases work from the many facets of Mendez’s career. The show includes a diverse range of work starting with some traditional wheel-thrown vessels created during the 1950s to large-scale stoneware sculptures from the 1960’s and moving into his playful ceramic erotica from the 1970’s. Representing the 1980’s and 1990’s, respectively, will be his kaleidoscopic colored masks and his post-modern “Robots”. Rounding out the show will be his ever magnificent Archaic Heads, made during the turn of the last century, which will be shown alongside Mendez’s vibrantly energetic Little Devils, human-cast assemblages and fine art oil paintings.