The Eide/Dalrymple Gallery at Augustana University opens “Comptoir de Commerce: Luminal — Ceramics by Chotsani Elaine Dean,” which will be on view through Thursday, March 6. The Augustana University Department of Art will host Dean on Wednesday, March 5, and Thursday, March 6, where she will be meeting with a range of classes. A closing gallery reception will take place from 7-9 p.m. on March 6, with Dean’s artist talk at 7:30 p.m.
Using earthenware, stoneware, slip-cast porcelain and porcelain paper clay, Dean transforms everyday decorative forms in order to connect her viewers to wider narratives that reveal both personal and global histories of the United States. The works often include writing, including names, dates, as well as longitude and latitude coordinates. Dean also gives each work an evocative title, offering wider meanings rooted in history.
“Every object is not quite what it seems and much more than what it seems in this exhibition,” noted Director of the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery Dr. Lindsay Twa. “Each object often speaks to other domestic crafting traditions and materials, such as stoneware tiles that mimic the textile strips of a pieced-strip sampler quilt. A ceramic artform in dialogue with a quilting tradition tied to the history of cotton, southern plantations and the artist’s own ancestry. This complex invoking of multiple materials and craft traditions is the visual means for engaging with the entanglements of history. This exhibition demands that viewers slow down, look closely and, as needed, look up the names and words that appear within the works and in the titles. Such efforts reward the viewer as history slowly unfolds through the contemporary works of Chotsani Elaine Dean.”
For example, “Memory Spoon,” hangs from a nail on the wall. Created of porcelain paper clay, the large cooking utensil is glazed to look like brass. The words “kitchen cook” are inscribed on the handle. The bowl of the spoon angles off axis. Flowers and seeds (grown in the artist’s garden) can be seen embedded in resin within the spoon’s bowl. Delicate and elaborate ribbons seem tied onto the spoon’s handle until a closer look reveals that these forms, too, are porcelain paper clay.
The work’s full title, “Memory Spoon: in a Hardenbergh kitchen cellar, a garden grew inside her spirit,” guides us. In her artist statement, Dean notes how her visual research evolved to include her hometown, Hartford, Connecticut, its Dutch culture and the life of Sojourner Truth. Hardenbergh is the family that owned Isabelle Baumfree, the remarkable woman who would escape to freedom and rename herself Sojourner Truth.
“The complex, layered realities of my communal ancestry's history and visual archives set forth the foundations of creative purpose in my studio practice and research. A significant part of my work is rooted in (ceramic) quilts...” said Dean as a part of her artist statement. “Adaptation, resourcefulness, survival and triumph are what I appreciate when I consider the fullness of these quilts, their makers, and the history from which they emerge and have moved through time. My work centers the realities of those who sewed and stitched to encompass all those who stitched and sewed a resolute history and legacy gifted freedom, personhood and rich visual language to our world.”
Dean is an artist and the assistant professor of ceramics at the University of Minnesota. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in ceramics from Hartford Art School and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Sam Fox School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. 
Dean is coauthor of the book, Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artists (Schiffer Publishing). She has been the recipient of the McKnight Artist Fellowship Award for ceramics, a Fulbright Scholar Teaching and Research grant and Connecticut Arts Grant. She was the inaugural MJ DO Good resident at Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana, and has also held the John Michael Kohler Artist Residency. She has lectured and exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions. In addition, Dean has served as the studio manager at Wesleyan Potters in Middletown, Connecticut, and has taught at several institutions, including Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, the University of Connecticut, Connecticut College and Hartford Art School.
About the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery
As a part of Augustana University, the mission of the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery is to contribute to the educational and cultural vitality of the university, surrounding community and state of South Dakota. The Eide/Dalrymple Gallery inspires the artists of today and tomorrow, and serves as a resource for teaching and promoting life-long learning through its permanent collection and temporary exhibition program with accompanying artist visits, gallery talks and educational materials.
The Eide/Dalrymple Gallery is named after Palmer Eide and Ogden Dalrymple, pioneering Augustana professors emeriti of art. Many of their collaborative works are spread throughout the campus.
The Eide/Dalrymple Gallery is located at 30th Street and Grange Avenue, in the Center for Visual Arts at Augustana. The gallery is open to the public and free of charge. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., and Saturdays, from 1-4 p.m.
To learn more about the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery, visit augie.edu/EDGallery.