Arabella Ark • Village Galleries Maui
Maui Ceramic Artist Arabella Ark has distinguished herself in the art world creating large-scale, architectural ceramic forms and lending them a feeling of mystery and antiquity by firing in the Japanese raku tradition. The artist nurtures and honors the unexpected changes the fire makes on her work during this process. She is a self-taught hand-builder, constructing her pieces from rolled slabs of porcelain clay or paper-clay fiber. Her ceramic vessels have been exhibited in numerous US juried shows for the past thirty-eight years and toured internationally in Japan and the European Union. Considered one of the leading ceramicists in Hawaii, Arabella received the 1995 ARTISTS OF HAWAII Alfred Pries Memorial Award for Achievement in the Arts. She was Invited Artist for the ARTISTS OF HAWAII show at Honolulu Academy of the 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 11 years she owned and operated a co-operative gallery in Honolulu. Her ceramics also grace the new Hawaii State Convention Center. Her work has also been highlighted in a number of publications including Tim Andrew's RAKU, Ceramics Monthly and RAKU:Investigations into Fire, David Jones.
Arabella’s works are featured at Village Galleries in Lahaina and Kapalua.