Johnathan Hopp is an Assistant Professor of Ceramic Art at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He holds degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA, 2001, Industrial Design) and the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (MDes, 2013, Industrial Design). As a designer, Johnathan has worked on commissions and projects for clients such as Paul Smith (London), The Tel-Aviv municipality, the Kastiel furniture company (Tel-Aviv), and the Design Museum (Holon). As a studio artist, he has exhibited his work in venues such as the Israel Museum (Jerusalem), the Gardiner Museum (Toronto), the Museum of Art and Design (NYC) and the Yingge Museum (Taipei). His work resides in public and private collections such as the Israel Museum (Jerusalem), the Museum of Art and Design (NYC), the Kneset collection(Israeli parliament, Jerusalem) and the Jewish Museum (NYC).

Exhibition Statement, September 2020:

This series of work is an inquiry into layering printed Eutectic glazes and clays into the cast surface of an object. It was made using a process by which the production steps are reversed – first the surface is printed flat on a piece of large paper, then it is rolled up or folded and porcelain cast into it. The series is a product of curiosity about melting things together, taking separate materials and heating them until they become one material, layering substances with different visual and mechanical properties to see what they do to each other. Eutectic glazes melt late in the firing and relax the surface of the clay all of a sudden- pulling the form and causing it to warp.

The work is partly systematic and intentional, and partly unrestrained: On the one hand - the excitement that comes from the complexity of interactions between multiple layers of materials in the kiln. On the other, considered subtleties within a single layer of red clay that is printed thinly and intentionally on the surface, or the neat calculated marks of the underglaze pencil being dragged by the X/Y plotter. With the combination of methods and approaches the object becomes a site of collaboration between tools, materials, methods, formats and processes.