Donna Namnoum

www.donnanamnoum.com

Donna Namnoum graduated from Southern Connecticut State University with a degree in art education and then received a Masters Degree in Art Education and Ceramics at the Hartford Art School. She worked as an art teacher and high school administrator in Connecticut public schools for 35 years until her retirement. Now, working full-time as an artist, Namnoum maintains a home and studio in Canton, Connecticut. She has exhibited in juried, solo and group exhibits at venues throughout Connecticut and New England.                 
 
Donna’s ceramic works use the covered jar and other wheel-thrown forms as a mode of expression. Informed by the vessel aesthetic, over her career she has used the potter’s wheel as the main tool to make an evolving series of sculptural forms. Each of the parts is made on the potter’s wheel and then is altered and assembled, creating forms intended to look alive - growing, twisting, and even wilting. Although the work is not about any one thing, over the years, she has cycled back to forms inspired by plants more often than not.

Unusual surfaces and vibrant color combinations are integral to the forms. There is a certain unpredictability of how a piece may turn out after the glaze firing; the goal is uncertainty and that experimentation be visible in the final work while conjuring familiar images; some easily recognizable and others vague. Crackle and other textured glazes juxtaposed and contrasting with matte underglazes and satin and glossy glazes add to the visual interest.