You and Me marks the debut solo exhibition of ceramic artist Theo Hirschfield, presenting a series of sculptural works that investigate the intimate tensions between strength and tenderness, repetition and spontaneity, softness and force. Rooted in physical labor and emotional nuance, Hirschfield’s practice is a meditation on opposites held in balance.
The works present as if they have been grown rather than fabricated, nurtured into existence through patience and intuition. They swell and curve with confidence, then soften into voids or unexpected openings. At once sensual and strange, muscular and tender, they draw viewers into a shared moment of companionship - a quiet you and me. In their company, there’s a mutuality, as if each piece is not simply observed, but observing in return. The works seem to acknowledge us - flawed, complex, evolving - and invite us to do the same for them.
Deaf since early childhood, Hirschfield approaches his work as a full-body sensory practice. His process is intensely physically rigorous, yet requires extraordinary care and precision. His sculptures are produced with a variety of techniques. Clay is thrown, hand-built, then left to slowly cure before being meticulously surfaced with texture or glazed and fired in a kiln.
Hirschfield’s work carries echoes of Ken Price’s irreverent forms, Yayoi Kusama’s obsessive surfaces, and Jun Kaneko’s vibrant monoliths, yet remains wholly his own. His sculptures exist in conversation with both contemporary pop aesthetics and timeless questions of embodiment. They resist fixed meaning and instead function as a presence: intimate, outlandish, and open. Together, these works offer not just a meditation, but a relationship. A reminder that in the space between you and me, connection is carefully nurtured and created, gesture by gesture.
