Collection: Sasha Koozel Reibstein & Jerrie Fabrigas - Featured Artists

We are excited to offer this two-person feature with two outstanding artists, Sasha Koozel Reibstein and Jerrie Fabrigas

Sasha Koozel Reibstein

Artist Statement:

My practice is fundamentally rooted in an embrace of the unknown and reflection on transformation, using alchemic forms and surfaces to emphasize the shared materiality of our bodies, the earth and cosmos. These works shape-shift, oscillating between abstraction, flora, fauna and mineral. This has the effect of compressing time, with elements frozen in mid-transformation. This dislocation reflects on mortality and ephemerality, creating opportunities to psychically time travel to connect with eternities future and past. 

Working with the ceramic material is in itself deeply meaningful as it offers direct engagement with the physicality of the earth. Each object experiences a significant metamorphosis through labored and precarious construction followed by numerous firings with rapid rates of expansion and contraction involving weighty and explosive glazes. My drips are sculpted with extreme control, while glaze is applied in thick and uneven layers, allowing the materials to inject their own intrinsic response to the processes. This allows my relationship to the material be one of collaboration, where I see just how far I can push the material before it collapses, serving as a direct metaphor for our own minds and bodies which eventually fracture and give way under extreme stress.  

Surfaces are often coated in precious metals such as gold and platinum, materials that are naturally occurring both on earth and in space. This luminous and reflective surface is often paired with black flock or textural glazes, creating tension between the reflection and absorption of light. There is a dissonance between these surfaces, highlighting the tension and difficulty inherent in balancing lives full of love and loss, health and illness, control and powerlessness.

References to the cosmos additionally address experiences of otherness and offer an embrace of escapism, allowing the opportunity to be transported and envision a present and future outside of one’s overwhelming earthly existence. Recently this has been focused on the idea of the portal, a visualization of a point of transformation that once you pass through, you cannot return the same.

Bio: 

Sasha Koozel Reibstein (b. Boston, MA) is a mixed media artist living in San Diego, California. Her work reflects on transformation, mortality and the sublime through sculptures that are other-worldly, evocative of the cosmos as a way to confront the unknown and embrace the vastness of the larger universe. While primarly sculpting out of clay, Reibstein’s experimentation and broad use of material, ranging from 22k gold to cosmetic glitter, allow her to create objects that are alchemic, acting as vehicles for psychic teleportation. 

Reibstein has traveled extensively, working and exhibiting in Germany, Denmark, Hungary and China. Her work has been included in over 80 national and international exhibitions including at The Zentrum fur Keramik in Berlin, Germany, Guldagergaard in Skaelskor, Denmark, NY Arts Magazine and ArtSpace 1 in Beijing, China, Couturier Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Maytens Projects in Toronto, Canada, Quint Gallery in La Jolla, CA, The Morris Graves Museum in Eureka, CA, The Attelboro Museum in Attelboro, MA, The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT, The American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, CA, The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the San Diego International Airport and The International Mingei Museum. Press includes HereIn Journal, Maake Magazine, Art Ltd, Ceramics: Art and Perception, Ceramics Monthly, the San Diego Union Tribune, Glasstire, Simayspace and NY Arts Magazine, among others. She was granted an International Resident Artist Award from NCECA and has participated in numerous residencies nationally and abroad, including currently as a Resident Artist at the Center for Contemporary Ceramics at CSULB

Find Sasha on artaxis at: https://artaxis.org/artist/sasha-koozel-reibstein/

Find Sasha on Instagram at: @sashakoozel

Jerrie Fabrigas

Artist Statement:

I am interested in exploring the nuances of intangible aspects of the self that are a culmination of personal and generational trauma, societal expectations, and being a woman, and translate them into pieces that embody the weight and thorniness of these experiences.

In my life, I’ve felt a lot of longing associated with being a second-generation American; a desire to fit in and be “enough,” a desire to legitimize the sacrifices made by my parents. There is a longing to connect with a “homeland,” a distant place constructed by personal memories, stories and anecdotes by family told in native tongue, songs passed down through lullabies, and food. 

Langka is the Filipino word for “jackfruit,” which is my favorite fruit – I love how it tastes, how it smells, how it feels like treasure when I find it in Halo-Halo. I love its spiky exterior and its intimidating appearance. It is a joyful event in the shape of a fruit; cleaving one open, peeling away the membranes, and distributing the bulbs to eager hands. Langka symbolizes family. It reminds me of the hot humid air of summers in the Philippines, of my grandmother in her kitchen, and warnings from my uncle to not eat too much in one sitting to avoid a stomach ache.

My first langka vessel was made to commemorate my grandmother. The pieces began as an avenue to process grief and allowed me to feel connected to the well of family history and knowledge that I always yearn to access. The individual application of spikes is time-consuming, but meditative. Lately the spikes have become more pronounced and sharper (more durian than langka), the vessels have evolved into more experimental shapes, and the colors have become more self-indulgent, but at their core they remain an homage to my family and a celebration of my identity. While I view my other work as exorcising my demons into clay, the langka vessels are an effort to reinforce and reconnect to my roots.

Bio: 

Jerrie Fabrigas is from San Diego, California. She holds a BA in Art History from the University of California, Irvine and has lived and studied in both Paris, France and Mito, Japan. She began working with clay in January 2020 at Palomar College and will continue to use the medium to explore the intricacies within intersectional relationships between race, identity, the body, feeling marginalized, and coming to terms with trauma.

Find Jerrie on Instagram at: @zerii.fire

Proceeds from this sale support the artist, and Artaxis, a 501(c)3 non-profit art organization. Please contact us at contactartaxis@gmail.com if you would like to ship any of the work out of the US, or if you have any questions.

** This Artaxis Shop has ended. You can find more work available for sale by visiting the other Featured Artist collections HERE