In his second solo exhibition at Carl Berg Gallery, Michael Pierzynski will be exhibiting a new body of sculpture that is a continuation of his exploration of the exotic, dark and surreal. While drawing from a wide range of sources including eastern religious art, classical sculpture, surrealist painting, and ceramic kitsch, Pierzynski’s sculptures create unique visual and conceptual hybrids.

Pierzynski has become a modern day storyteller using highly detailed and exquisitely crafted painted ceramic sculpture as his manuscript. He conjures together a combination of the things that one might seemingly find enchanting but then periodically punctuates his work with a skull or accompanies a work with ominously cryptic text that conveys his poetic and delicately twisted sensibility.

In his newest sculptures, which include re-cast and re-formed ceramic Christmas trees, skulls and tree branches, Pierzynski continues his exploration of a subtle yet dark narrative. Often combined with a foreboding and obtuse text based wall work, these sculptures exhibit a particularly quirky quality that has been the basis of Pierzynski’s work over the last 15 years. Christmas trees have become a reoccurring theme but now take on a somewhat animated human quality. Skulls have also re-appeared in this body of work but now approach human scale. Twisted tree branches provide us a view into the warped world of Pierzynski’s modern tale.