June 2016: Yelena Roslaya

Yelena Roslaya creates exquisite ceramic donut configurations to explore with glazes and the sculpture form. The donut shapes are slip-cast and are stacked vertically to pour crawling glaze experiments on them. To get such astounding variation, she adds color pigments to different crawling glaze recipes. Other times, she paints a donut glaze test with an underglaze color first and then pours white crawling glaze on top. She prefers contrast between a subdued color and the white crawling glaze to make the surface pop on the form. Sometimes, Roslaya fires her forms several times before getting the desired result. She places each donut in gesture form to show personality, communication, and relationship between her small sculptures. Even though they are simple, their glaze and personality show otherwise. They may be leaning against each other or having a casual conversation. Whatever it is, can be up to the viewer’s imagination.