To create this new body of work, Levy-Lucero found early inspiration in Claude Monet’s water lily series. As the artist’s previous works have centered around the reappropriation of brand logos, he noticed that the widespread dissemination of Monet’s water lilies has produced a similar phenomena. Like the brand logo, the water lilies occupy a place in the collective consciousness vis-à-vis mass circulation and recreation. Further, as the water lily paintings symbolized a move into expressionism, Levy-Lucero makes a similar gesture to consider our relationships to self, nature, and art. Color and texture extrusions stimulate sensory responses as each vessel transports viewers elsewhere, from the Musée de L'Orangerie in Paris to the streets of Los Angeles to unnamed scenes of nature. Fencing and brick motifs foreground idyllic landscapes, evoking the sensation of breaking through one’s confines to reach a place of peace. Liquid and silver glazes give certain pieces the qualities of a mirror, in which viewers’ likenesses and surroundings are interpreted and returned by the ceramic object. Through the sensory nature of Levy-Lucero’s work, viewers transcend their position of spectatorship and into one of agency. 

In his ceramic vessels, Levy-Lucero illustrates the new dynamics that emerge through acts of de- and re- familiarization. These processes activate us in various ways; we are compelled to observe with renewed diligence and curiosity. The clay pot becomes an experience in and of itself, functioning like a channel for narratives to develop and shift. As self-analysis reveals and Levy-Lucero’s Reflections suggests, nothing is static. Everything moves if you look at it long enough.

Grant Levy-Lucero (b. 1981, Los Angeles, CA) has had solo exhibitions at Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong; White Columns, New York, NY; VNH Gallery, Paris, France; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Henry Taylor’s, Los Angeles. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at Jeffrey Deitch, New York; Arsenal, New York; Musée des Arts décoratifs de Paris, Paris; Gagosian Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland; Art Toronto, Toronto, ON; 356 Mission, Los Angeles; Sans Titre, Paris; and Club Pro LA, Los Angeles. He has collaborated with Acne Studios on the 2021 Fall/Winter collection and the 2019 Grant Levy-Lucero x Acne Studios collection. He lives and works in Los Angeles.