BIOGRAPHY
Arabella Ark's pottery forms an alliance with the forces of
nature, which have created the beautiful Hawaiian Islands where she lives:
"Clay forms seemingly blown from the mouth of a volcano...or torn from
Hawaii's shores."
Candace Charlot,
Waikiki Press
Ceramic artist Arabella Ark has distinguished herself in the art world by her large-scale, architectural ceramic forms, lending them a feeling of mystery and antiquity by firing in the raku tradition. She is a self-taught clay artist, working in England and Hawaii. As a hand-builder, Arabella constructs her pieces from rolled slabs of porcelain clay or from paper-clay fiber. Most of her work is sculptural, including large 2-D tablets for wall mounting. She fires in all styles (raku, pit, electric, gas) and temperature ranges (low, high, oxidation, reduction), but finds particular enjoyment and beauty in the raku-firing process. The artist nurtures and honors the unexpected changes the fire makes on her work during this process. Her ceramic vessels have been exhibited in numerous US juried shows for the past twenty-eight years and toured internationally in Japan and the European Union. Arabella explored electric kiln smoke firing and kiln building during two residencies at Rufford. She also has extensive teaching experience at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and community colleges, and leads ceramics workshops around the world. Biennial Artist in 1995 for the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu and considered one of the leading ceramists in Hawaii, Arabella received the 1995 ARTISTS OF HAWAII Alfred Preis Memorial Award for Achievement in the Arts. She was the Invited Artist for the ARTISTS OF HAWAII show at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1989. The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts' selected her work for both the thirty-year RETROSPECTIVE 1967-1997 and the twenty-year RETROSPECTIVE 1967-1987 exhibitions. For eleven years, she owned and operated a co-operative gallery in Honolulu. Her ceramics also grace the new Hawaii State Convention Center. Her work has been highlighted in Tim Andrew's RAKU, Ceramics Monthly, RAKU by Robert Piepenburg, Alistair Young's Setting Up a Pottery Workshop, Australia's Ceramics: Art and Perception, Raku, A Handbook, John Mathieson, Raku: Investigations into Fire, David Jones. Her work is often shown in special exhibitions at the American Craft Museum in New York, Contemporary Ceramics in London, the Fumiki Gallery in San Francisco, and the Dearing Galleries in Taos. Her Hana, Maui studio is open by appointment.