Sharif Farrag’s ceramics draw from a well of personal experience. Replete with bold iconography, Farrag consistently pushes the expressive potential of clay and painterly glazes to render intricate and cartoonishly monstrous characters. The artist’s hybrid forms touch on the second-generation American experience, forming prismatic refractions of his Syrian-Egyptian parentage, his San Fernando Valley upbringing, skater culture, and graffiti. His densely decorated artworks also reference art historical tropes, as with his depictions of gardens. Exposing his ceramics to invariably high temperatures, Farrag tests the integrity of the material to produce fiery alchemies of melted and bleached color. Across the artist’s anthropomorphized scenes, flowers sprout faces, and clocks become animated. Meanwhile, recurring images of alter egos offer Farrag an outlet for his angels and demons.
Sharif Farrag
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