Image Credit: Andréa Keys Connell, Plaaaaaaaid, 2023, clay and underglaze. 32 in. x 20 in. x 18 in. Courtesy of the artist
June 28 – November 29, 2025 | Rankin West Gallery
At the heart of Andréa Keys Connell’s work is a question: how can the things we make help us hold time, memory, and care? Her ceramic sculptures—often fragmented, patterned, and emotionally charged—explore what it means to endure, to remember, and to repair.
Connell’s figures do not always appear whole. Limbs are stretched or stilled, faces are hidden, and bodies lean forward into uncertain space. Yet each one carries a quiet sense of presence—something tender, unresolved, and deeply human. They feel at once familiar and strange, comforting and unsettling.
In this exhibition, Connell draws from personal and family history to explore pattern as a way of holding memory. Floral motifs and layered surfaces reference textiles, heirlooms, and rituals of making. For her, patterns are more than decoration—they are markers of time, traces of care passed from one person to another.