Christopher Brody is a decorative artist living in sunny Southern California. Educated at Parsons School of Design in New York City with a foundation in drawing, illustration, and graphic design, he now specializes in art pottery and fine art and architectural mosaics and tile work. Inspired by his Mexican-American heritage and expat upbringing in the English countryside, he currently offers several motifs for different tastes that are tied together by his distinctive glazes and carving style.
My love of texture has taken me on many experiments from setting up roadside to gather passerby’s shoe impressions to marathon sessions creating my own clay stamps from found objects. The culmination of all of my experimentation has helped me to refine my designs and patterns into ones that truly represent my voice as an artist.”
This application felt more in harmony with the forms I love to throw, soft and rounded. I have been influenced by hard edges in my other work, but for these pieces, a natural flowing or erupting surface mimicking the natural world seems to be best. I am finding dozens of surface variations that in essence allow me to carve my work in a spontaneous way."
Neil's pieces are represented in many collections in Southern California and New England. His ceramic pieces range from functional thrown forms to coil and slab-built figurative sculptures. His current clay pieces meld thrown forms, slabs, altering, incising and sculpting. The glazes on the functional pieces, fired in an electric kiln, have been developed to give the surface the depth and beauty traditionally associated with reduction firing. Neil's pieces meld a spiritual simplicity with a figurative rhythm and physical energy. This comes from being a kinetic individual, from a lifetime of playing sports, and his appreciation of Japanese ceramics and classical sculpture.
