Gestures

By Jim Schatz

24 hand-formed ceramic tiles in lava finish

Presented as part of Radical Presence, The Body, Repeated extends the exhibition's meditation on queer embodiment, touch, and material presence through a gridded field of ceramic relief. Across 24 hand-formed tiles, the body appears in fragments — repeated, interrupted, and reassembled — so that the composition unfolds as both image and structure.

The lava finish lends the surface a muted, flesh-like warmth, drawing attention to contour, shadow, and the intimacy of the hand-worked clay. Both architectural and vulnerable, the piece occupies a space between mural, relief, and sculptural drawing.

Each tile is signed by J Schatz. Unique work.

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by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr

A wooden totem rising from a stoneware base. Hand-built clay forms glazed and high-fired in the Detroit studio, set onto carved and sanded wood. Part of a series of seven, each totem holds the same formal vocabulary while reading as its own variation. Made collaboratively by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr. — clay and wood in conversation, neither artist's hand alone, the work emerges through the back-and-forth of two practices. Signed by both artists.

Questions?‍ ‍Terms & Conditions

by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr

A wooden totem rising from a stoneware base. Hand-built clay forms glazed and high-fired in the Detroit studio, set onto carved and sanded wood. Part of a series of seven, each totem holds the same formal vocabulary while reading as its own variation. Made collaboratively by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr. — clay and wood in conversation, neither artist's hand alone, the work emerges through the back-and-forth of two practices. Signed by both artists.

Questions?‍ ‍Terms & Conditions

by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr

A wooden totem rising from a stoneware base. Hand-built clay forms glazed and high-fired in the Detroit studio, set onto carved and sanded wood. Part of a series of seven, each totem holds the same formal vocabulary while reading as its own variation. Made collaboratively by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr. — clay and wood in conversation, neither artist's hand alone, the work emerges through the back-and-forth of two practices. Signed by both artists.

Questions?‍ ‍Terms & Conditions

by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr

A wooden totem rising from a stoneware base. Hand-built clay forms glazed and high-fired in the Detroit studio, set onto carved and sanded wood. Part of a series of seven, each totem holds the same formal vocabulary while reading as its own variation. Made collaboratively by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr. — clay and wood in conversation, neither artist's hand alone, the work emerges through the back-and-forth of two practices. Signed by both artists.

Questions?‍ ‍Terms & Conditions

by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr

A wooden totem rising from a stoneware base. Hand-built clay forms glazed and high-fired in the Detroit studio, set onto carved and sanded wood. Part of a series of seven, each totem holds the same formal vocabulary while reading as its own variation. Made collaboratively by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr. — clay and wood in conversation, neither artist's hand alone, the work emerges through the back-and-forth of two practices. Signed by both artists.

Questions?‍ ‍Terms & Conditions

by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr

A wooden totem rising from a stoneware base. Hand-built clay forms glazed and high-fired in the Detroit studio, set onto carved and sanded wood. Part of a series of seven, each totem holds the same formal vocabulary while reading as its own variation. Made collaboratively by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr. — clay and wood in conversation, neither artist's hand alone, the work emerges through the back-and-forth of two practices. Signed by both artists.

Questions?‍ ‍Terms & Conditions

by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr

A wooden totem rising from a stoneware base. Hand-built clay forms glazed and high-fired in the Detroit studio, set onto carved and sanded wood. Part of a series of seven, each totem holds the same formal vocabulary while reading as its own variation. Made collaboratively by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr. — clay and wood in conversation, neither artist's hand alone, the work emerges through the back-and-forth of two practices. Signed by both artists.

Questions?‍ ‍Terms & Conditions

by Jim Schatz

Part of Radical Presence, Figure Study Eggs is a series of porcelain eggs featuring photographic mural imagery and hand-drawn figure studies. Intimate in scale and sculptural in presence, each piece carries the body across a curved surface — extending the language of the exhibition through form, image, and touch.

Each egg is one of a kind.

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by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr.

Part of Radical Presence, Honcho 1986 is a limited series of ceramic plates drawn from archival Honcho magazine imagery and typography — including fragments of Peter as cover model. Cropped, intimate, and graphic, each plate transforms a singular image fragment into a lasting ceramic object.

Each plate is part of an edition of 40, with every image unique to the series.

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by Jim Schatz

Gestures is a series of stoneware plates made as part of Radical Presence. Each plate carries a photographic transfer of the figure. The earlier plates crop close — the body in fragment, a torso or a limb held at the edge of recognition. The later plates open out to the whole figure, a single pose caught mid-hold.

The image sits in the glaze rather than on it, rendered in oxide tones of brown. The halftone screen leaves its own texture in the surface. No two images repeat.

Made in two diameters, 8" and 11". Each plate is built and finished by hand in Detroit, and numbered and dated by the artist. Edition of 100, each image unique to the series.

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by Jim Schatz

A ceramic box in the form of a resting head, with a fitted lid and concealed interior. The exterior is finished in a rustic glaze that gives the surface depth, warmth, and the presence of age. The interior opens into a contrasting light blue chamber that introduces color, intimacy, and surprise. Both sculpture and container, the piece moves between object, relic, and keepsake.

Closed, it reads as a compact sculptural form. Opened, it becomes an interior space — protective, personal, quietly reverential.

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by Jim Schatz

Part of Radical Presence, Handstand pairs a gold lustre ceramic figure with a weathered wood base. Suggesting a body lifted in motion, the piece balances play, tension, and presence in a compact, one-of-a-kind object — reflecting the exhibition's interest in intimacy, material contrast, and expressive form.

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By Jim Schatz

A stoneware wall installation of 100 hand-formed tiles, mounted across four wood-panel sections. Through scale, repetition, and surface, the work positions queer male embodiment as sacred and transformative, holding ephemeral gestures in lasting form. Clay becomes both archive and altar. Exhibited as part of Season Fair's Special Projects at Michigan Central, Detroit, 2025. Co-conceived with Peter Souza Jr.

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By Jim Schatz

A continuation of the Radical Presence series — a nine-month labor composed of glossy and matte stoneware tile sections adhered to a six-section wood panel frame. Four figures in green, blue, yellow, and red fold and rise across a white field, bodies held in gesture and balance. Built and finished by hand in the studio. Numbered and dated by the artist.

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