{"id":282569,"date":"2026-02-05T18:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T18:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/282569\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T18:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T18:33:16","slug":"nicole-cherubini-exhibits-surrealist-ceramic-sculptures-at-friedman-benda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/282569\/","title":{"rendered":"nicole cherubini exhibits surrealist ceramic sculptures at friedman benda"},"content":{"rendered":"

hotel roma opens at friedman benda<\/p>\n

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Nicole Cherubini presents Hotel Roma at Friedman Benda<\/a>\u2018s New York gallery, an exhibition<\/a> of ceramic<\/a> works that emphasize motifs of collage. Installed across the gallery, the sculptures<\/a> move between monumentality and intimacy with their large-scale presence and dense symbolic detailing.<\/p>\n

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Cherubini is recognized for building by hand in clay, and that commitment to direct contact remains central here. Terracotta and white earthenware carry layered glazes in turquoise, amber, emerald, and metallic luster, applied with an eye toward weight and tempo. The surfaces feel worked over time, and show evidence of the artist\u2019s hand that stays visible even at a distance.<\/p>\n

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Hotel Roma, Nicole Cherubini, Friedman Benda | image \u00a9 Pierre Le Hors<\/a><\/p>\n

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Nicole Cherubini draws from Surrealist themes<\/p>\n

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The exhibition at Friedman Benda<\/a> draws themes from Leonora Carrington\u2019s Down Below, a text that has long shaped Nicole Cherubini\u2019s thinking. \u2018Carrington vividly writes about her harrowing experiences during World War II,\u2019 the artist<\/a> tells designboom. \u2018For me, her story offered an investigation, of sorts, into ideas of creativity, reality, disbelief and humanity, and its perception through a feminist lens. It feels like a bit of a mirror to our contemporary society, reflecting much that is going on with our current rights and freedoms.\u2019<\/p>\n

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That perspective brings historical figures into conversation with current conditions. Carrington\u2019s experience during World War II, including her stay at Madrid\u2019s Hotel Roma, becomes a lens for examining how creativity functioned as endurance and resistance. \u2018I looked back at the women working during this time period \u2014 who are all just incredible \u2014 and really explored how their use of creativity and agency forged an energy that made change through resistance and radicalism.\u2019 she explains.<\/p>\n

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Hotel Roma, Nicole Cherubini, Friedman Benda | image \u00a9 Pierre Le Hors<\/p>\n

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the collage as a feminist aesthetic<\/p>\n

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Several sculptures in Hotel Roma revolve around the Three Graces, a classical typology Cherubini approaches through ancient philosophical texts that describe generosity as a cycle of giving and return. Each work asserts a distinct physical character, including a sculpture conjoined to a ceramic bench that stretches more than ten feet across the gallery floor.<\/p>\n

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The forms combine swelling volumes with embedded figurative details, giving the sense of bodies assembling themselves in stages. Cherubini connects this method to ideas of collage and reconstruction. \u2018Frankenstein, to me, is about collage. It is a taking of disparate parts to create a new whole, to form new possibilities and understanding of structure,\u2019 she notes. The reference aligns with her broader interest in hybrid form, where fragments accumulate through labor and choice. The sculptures draw energy from baroque abundance and surrealist excess, yet remain grounded in the logic of their materials.<\/p>\n

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Hotel Roma, Nicole Cherubini, Friedman Benda | image \u00a9 Pierre Le Hors<\/p>\n

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a handcrafted process<\/p>\n

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The making of the ceramic works results from both collective effort and solitary focus. \u2018The creation of these pieces involve two major processes,\u2018 Cherubini continues. Large molds require sustained physical work by a team she has collaborated with for years, followed by a hand-building phase carried out entirely by the artist. \u2018That\u2019s where you can see all the hand marks. It\u2019s almost performative, like a recording of time.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Up close, this intimacy is rendered texturally. Impressions from rings and bandages remain embedded in the clay, turning the sculpture into a record of the artist\u2019s own unique movements. Meanwhile, in works such as Butterfly, inspired by a lyric from American songwriter Erykah Badu, doubled forms suggest motion through their massing. Across Hotel Roma, Cherubini\u2019s sculptural pieces sustain attention through this tension between scale and detail, along with contemporary design and historical reference.<\/p>\n

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Hotel Roma, Nicole Cherubini, Friedman Benda | image \u00a9 Pierre Le Hors<\/p>\n

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