In Untitled Brown has created various totemic personages or talismans from slim cylinders, all of which brandish a curious assortment of spikes, appendages, and tumorous growths. Formally, this work builds on the connections between modern and primitive art, evoking the work of Constantine Brancusi, Alberto Giacometti, Wifredo Lam, and Max Ernst. Like those artists, Brown’s archetypal forms appear to be anthropomorphic, biomorphic, and/or zoomorphic. However, by grouping the figures together, she manages to infuse this Surrealist heritage with her own distinctive sense of humor and whimsy, much like Paul Klee and Joan Miró did in their work. Beautifully crafted, they remain separate and apart and yet, like human beings, they seem drawn together for comfort and communication. In discussing her approach to sculpture, Brown says, “There is a fine line between what is whimsical and what is unsettling or malevolent; what is aggressive and what is reticent or static.” Her sculpture explores these opposites with compelling tension.

Betty Woodman is a preeminent American ceramist whose work transcends the clay medium. Although Woodman is linked to the traditional craft heritage by her choice of material and techniques, she creates highly individual works of art that go beyond function while still utilizing the vessel form. Woodman transforms vase shapes into painterly compositions that are brought together in multiple free-standing combinations and as installations and wall pieces. These works of art engage and provoke the viewer both visually and intellectually. Sensuous Triptych displays the startling visual and spatial relationships that permeates much of Woodman's work. Although perhaps initially subtle, a lively dialogue exists between the vases' two- and three-dimensional features. Woodman plays flatness against volume, color against form, painterliness against shape. Notice how the free flowing painted decoration continues onto each vessel form, incorporating the negative spaces between the vessels as well. What is also important are the vases' front/back relationships: one side is brightly colored while the other is monochromatic. Woodman is a masterful colorist who has gained great intuition through experience. Betty Woodman attended Alfred University, School for American Craftsman from 1948-50. From 1979 until 1998 she served as a Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has won numerous awards and her work has been widely exhibited around the world and can be found in numerous major museum collections. She lives and works in New York City and Antella, Italy.