Robert Sperry - Artist Research Project
Platter #1050
27" dia. × 4"deep
1993
Wheel-thrown ceramic plate
Platter #833
27" dia. × 4"deep
1993
Wheel-thrown ceramic plate
Vase #366
23 × 18 × 18 in
Stoneware with high-fire iron wash, white crackle glaze, low-fire glaze, silver, platinum and gold lusters
Item #1001
19 × 23 × 23 inches
1976
Stoneware tile with slips, mixed media
Platter #372A
5 × 14 inches diameter
1979
Wheel-thrown stoneware, white crackle and low-fire glazes
Tile #1077
30 1/2 × 30 1/2 × 3 inches deep
1993
Stoneware tile, low-fire glaze, crawl glaze and black slip
Robert Sperry
Robert Sperry likes to make simple abstract objects with a lot of detail. The objects are mainly very simple but when you look deeper, there are many textures, values and hidden designs.
Principles of Design
Robert Sperry likes to make plates and adds a lot of textures to his artwork. Most of his arts have balance and symmetry. In many of his artworks, there is some texture but moreover, he uses a lot of textures. In many of his arts, his emphasis is placed on the middle. In some artworks, there is no emphasis and is spread out. For example, item #1050 and #833. Most of his artworks do not have much rhythm but his platters do have rhythm and it looks like it is guiding the person somewhere. To achieve this affect, he uses lines and curves that wrap around. All of his artwork has at least a little some unity but not high amounts of unity. Many of his arts have a lot of contrast because he likes to use contrasting colors such as black and white.
Elements of Art
Robert Sperry uses lines to his advantage to guide the viewer's eye around the object to make the person see more. In many of his arts, there is a simple shape and the decorations are the most important. Robert Sperry likes to use dark colors such as black and brown. A lot of the colors that he uses are brown, black, silver, and white. These are all colors with low value and are not that bright. His artwork usually has some space in between parts to emphasize some parts of his art. Robert Sperry's artwork has a lot of textures if examined closely.
My Opinion
I like Robert Sperry's artwork because he uses a lot of simplicity in his design but looking closely will reveal the very finely made textures. I like this simplicity a lot since the design is very intricate.
About this webpage
Site built from scratch, not from any templates. Built with pure code. Best viewed with anything other than Internet Explorer 6 or 7 for extra features.
This uses the jQuery library, jixedbar plugin, and RUZEE library to make the beautiful effects on this webpage. It is actually a single webpage. I have spent a total of 8 hours on this webpage on January 12-13 2010.
Without the javascript coding examples provided of many different websites, this site would not be possible. Some photos copyright by Rob Vinnedge and others by Howard House. Images cropped and resized to look better.