Cammie Staros

Scott Pavilion
Riley CAP Gallery S8

At once familiar and strange, Cammie Staros’s sculptures mine the forms, techniques, and pictorial traditions of ancient Mediterranean art. Among her favorite referents is the amphora, a shapely, two-handled vessel used to store liquids, such as wine and oil. Greek and Roman artists painted these pots with abstract designs and figurative imagery depicting scenes from civic life, military exploits, mythology, and more. Adopting this visual language, Staros imagines relics of the contemporary world. Her exhibition in the Riley CAP Gallery conjures a long-forgotten museum, its art and artifacts reclaimed by forces more powerful than humans.

Staros upends conventional approaches to displaying sculpture. She began making vitrine-aquariums amid a shifting political landscape in the US and growing awareness of the alarming ramifications of climate change. Pondering the rise and fall of empires, she submerged her clay vessels underwater and populated the tanks with living fish, snails, and other aquatic creatures. The aquariums in this exhibition feature stacked amphorae. Above the water lines, pristine, brightly-lit pots recall classic installations of objects from the ancient world. Among the fish, iterations of the same containers slump and undulate, seemingly weathered by time and exposure to the elements. Across the Museum, another Staros amphora joins The Joslyn’s presentation of ancient art. Clad in sand-colored stone, the Balcony serves as an arid contrast to the CAP Gallery’s vision of a future museum given over to the watery depths.

Pictured: Cammie Staros (American, b. 1983), Narcissus in Love, 2022, ceramic, acrylic, wood, laminate, powder-coated steel, water, aquatic filtration system, programmed grow light, seiryu stone, 76 × 19 × 19 in. (193 × 48.3 × 48.3 cm), © Cammie Staros, Courtesy of the artist and Nazarian / Curcio