Mariana Castillo Deball: The Flames Leave a Feathered Mark on the Clay Spider in the Chamber of Ash and Clay

The Flames Leave a Feathered Mark on the Clay Spider in the Chamber of Ash and Clay marks the first solo museum presentation for internationally celebrated Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball (Germany, b. Mexico 1975) in Arizona. The exhibition features a newly commissioned installation of seven hand-built, pit-fired stoneware ceramics resembling natural and manufactured items –– from spiders and turtles to altars and backpacks. It also features a “Cabeza Olmeca San Lorenzo 1 (rostro lado derecho),” a fiberglass sculpture of half of an Olmec head, by Castillo Deball, which has been acquired as part of the museum’s collection. Taken as a whole, Castillo Deball’s work, bridging science, archaeology and craft, questions how objects shape versions of identities and histories in our contemporary world.

Mariana Castillo Deball: The Flames Leave a Feathered Mark on the Clay Spider in the Chamber of Ash and Clay is organized by ASU Art Museum Senior Curator Alana Hernandez and ASU Art Museum Windgate Curatorial Fellow Sade Moore and made possible by generous funding from Windgate Charitable Foundation.