Bonnie Seeman

"Fancy Spout Teapot with Tray", Surrealist Porcelain Sculpture with Glass Detail

2013

Bonnie Seeman is a ceramic artist who seamlessly blurs the lines between a gorgeous teapot, an anatomical study of a torso and the lushness of a palm frond. Her wheel-thrown and hand-built pieces are functional items that ponder the connections between living things. Their extraordinary detail, rich colors and breathtaking beauty are juxtaposed against the raw emotion — almost morbid exhilaration — of witnessing an autopsy while simultaneously being enveloped by a jungle.

Seeman grew up in Miami, Florida, amidst the bold colors of the iconic 1980s South Beach area and its large-leaved tropical foliage. Her lifelong fascination with human anatomy made its way into her earliest attempts at clay wheel-throwing as her structures took on biomorphic properties. 

Pursuing her talents, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the University of Miami in 1991. She went on to study at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and received a Master of Fine Arts in 1996. For two years, she worked at the university as a post-graduate ceramics instructor. She returned to the University of Miami from 2001 to 2005 as a lecturer, becoming a senior lecturer from 2005 to 2009. In 2010, she became an instructor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

Seeman’s work was included in the 2006 exhibition “One of a Kind: The Studio Craft Movement” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her pieces are in many collections, including the Minnesota Museum of American Art in Minneapolis, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the World Ceramic Exposition Foundation in Incheon, Korea.

On 1stDibs, find Bonnie Seeman’s sculptures and more.