December 12, 2026 to January 5, 2027 at the Riversea Gallery in Astoria, Oregon.
Reception on Saturday, December 12 from 5PM to 8PM at the Riversea Gallery.
The Bestiary brings together the work of ceramic artists Randy McClelland and Penelope Dews, whose artistic friendship began in 2009 while firing Hiroshi Ogawa’s anagama in Elkton, Oregon. Although their individual practices have evolved in different directions, they remain connected through a shared appreciation for storytelling through ceramics.
Historically, bestiaries were collections of both real and imagined creatures. While they described the natural world, they were rarely about animals alone. Instead, they used beasts to explore human virtues, fears, contradictions, and beliefs. This exhibition continues that tradition, using animal forms to reflect the complexity of the human experience.
For Penelope Dews, animals become reflections of the human experience. Returning to familiar creatures allows her to explore the emotional qualities she associates with each, from innocence and curiosity to adventure, resilience, and quiet contemplation. Often presented in thoughtfully composed settings or dressed in human attire, these figures gently blur the boundary between the animal and human worlds.
Randy McClelland draws upon Japanese folklore, where animals often exist between the natural and supernatural. His yōkai inspired vessels and sculptures reinterpret centuries old legends through a contemporary lens, exploring themes of identity, prejudice, memory, and resilience. As shape shifters and storytellers, these creatures invite viewers to question assumptions, reconsider appearances, and discover unexpected truths about the human condition.
Together, these works form a contemporary bestiary. Whether playful or unsettling, sculptural or functional, each piece reaches beyond the animal itself to tell stories of compassion, fear, belonging, transformation, and our shared humanity.
Many of the works were fired together in the Neiseru Gama wood kiln in Naselle, Washington, alongside works completed independently through wood and electric firing. Like the illuminated bestiaries of the Middle Ages, this collection is ultimately less concerned with animals than with what animals reveal about ourselves. Every creature tells a story. Every story is, in some way, a portrait of being human.
Photo by Jody Miller
Photo by Jody Miller
