Alex Anderson

Alex Anderson (b. 1990, Seattle, WA) works in ceramics, using the medium to explore the sublime experiences of the man-made and natural worlds alongside questions of race, identity, and cultural representation. His sculptures combine baroque imagery and composition, Japanese pop references, and contemporary fashion and design to probe reality, illusion, and identity, engaging Western ceramic histories while operating within the discourse of Post-Blackness. His exhibition Shape of Life at Make Room, Los Angeles (2025) framed geometry as both an aesthetic language and a metaphysical foundation, anchored by two bodies of work: high-fired porcelain sculptures whose crystalline glazes bloom unpredictably under the kiln's thermal gradients, and chromatically saturated low-fired earthenware works that privilege surface, gesture, and narrative. His references range from Tibetan mandalas and Chinese coinage to the cosmological schematics of Hildegard von Bingen.

Anderson received his BA in Studio Art and Chinese from Swarthmore College (2013) and his MFA in Ceramics from the University of California, Los Angeles (2018). He studied at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China (2011) and was a Fulbright Scholar in ceramics and ink painting at the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou (2015). Solo exhibitions include Shape of Life, Make Room, Los Angeles (2025); Everything is made of light, Los Angeles (2024); and Not Romantic, New York (2023), with solo presentations at the Seattle Art Fair (2026) and Untitled Art, Miami (2024). Museum exhibitions include Unearthed, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa (2025); Pushing Boundaries: Ceramic Artists and Identity, Palo Alto Art Center (2025); Funk You Too!, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2023); Making in Between: Queer in Clay, American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona (2023); and presentations at the Long Beach Museum of Art. His work is held in the collections of the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York. He completed a residency at the Penland School of Craft (2023), and his work has been reviewed in Artforum, Artsy, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, Cultured, and the Los Angeles Times.