“The construction of the container form is only the first step in the multi-level artistic practice of exploring opportunities, fragility and loss. I am attracted by silence, sexiness, accident and loss, and integrating these into the unique experience of creation and destruction to deal with fragility and unexpected possibilities is my subtle and short-lived meditation on life and art.”——Cheryl Ann Thomas

Thomas is a potter from California, USA. She currently lives and works in Ventura. She graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California with a bachelor's degree. She worked full-time as a ceramic sculptor in the late 1990s. Thomas calls her works cultural relics, relics of human intervention, these sculptures permanently record the moments of material interaction.

Thomas’s work is different from sculptors who create smooth surfaces. She uses the classical winding technique used by Native Americans and West African peoples to make large storage tanks during the pre-Columbian period, imitating the growth process of natural creatures. The interaction of extreme temperatures cracks and deforms, reminiscent of body posture or textiles, and also echoes natural elements such as dried corn husks or peeled bark!

Thomas' work is famous for its short and subtle hints of existence. She stacked thin, coiled ceramics into tall cylinders, made them in an intuitive and organic way, emphasizing the fragility of unfired clay, and at the same time revealing that this fragile material gains strength during the firing process. After being ignited, oxides such as manganese, black iron and cobalt are added and they begin to collapse and fold to obtain a subtle hue. This unpredictable process makes her works full of mystery and emotion.

Thomas recently expanded her series of works to include bronze and stainless steel works, continuing her thinking about fragility. Although the high temperature caused the collapse of the object form, it also gave her the soul of her work. In this way, she created a real and unique experience of being lost.