Adrian Arleo is a ceramic sculptor living outside Missoula, Montana. She studied Art and Anthropology at Pitzer College (B.A. 1983) and received her M.F.A. in ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design in 1986. Arleo was an Artist in Residence at Oregon College of Art and Craft in 1986-87, and at Sitka Center For Art and Ecology in 1987-88.
Arleo’s work is exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in numerous public and private collections, including The World Ceramic Exposition Foundation, Icheon, Korea; The Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, Georgia; Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT; Greenwich House Pottery, NY, NY; and Microsoft, Seattle, WA. Arleo received awards from the Virginia A. Groot Foundation in 1991 and 1992, and in 1995, she was awarded a Montana Arts Council Individual Fellowship. Some recent publications include: Montana Quarterly, article by Charles Finn, vol. 8, #4, 2012; Ceramics: Art and Perception | Technical, review by Matthew Kangas, issue #88, 2012; Ceramics Monthly Magazine, Working Sculptor Feature, Jan. 2010; and the book The Figure in Clay: Contemporary Sculpting Techniques by Master Artists, published by Lark Books, 2005.
For over thirty years, my sculpture has combined human, animal and natural imagery to create a kind of emotional and poetic power. Often there's a suggestion of a vital interconnection between the human and non-human realms; the imagery arises from associations, concerns and obsessions that are at once intimate and universal. The work frequently references mythology and archetypes in addressing our vulnerability amid changing personal, environmental and political realities. By focussing on older, more mysterious ways of seeing the world, edges of consciousness and deeper levels of awareness suggest themselves. - Adrian Arleo
