"Roughly Embroidered" Exhibit Opening

Wednesday, March 6, 4:30–7:30 p.m.
Hedreen Gallery (Lee Center for the Arts)

Celebrate the opening of “Roughly Embroidered” with featured artist Gabrielle Wambaugh, who will discuss the work she has created during her residency at Seattle University. The artist talk will take place at 5 p.m. and food and drink will be served.

Artist Gabrielle Wambaugh has created the work that will appear in “Roughly Embroidered” while in residence at Seattle University, thanks to the generosity of the Pigott Family Endowment for the Arts. This work is a mixture of drawings, ceramics and embroidery. It features many different materials in striking juxtaposition. Color is added through fabric and other materials. Natural elements also play a role in how Wambaugh is creating her work. 

Wambaugh is interested in the transformation and flexibility of materials. Air, water and fire form the essence of her use of ceramics. Then comes the texture imprints by either contact or aggregation. In her work she also likes to assemble, weaving every diverse link between multiple sources. As Wambaugh says “I assemble because I believe in what we cannot see, I bring together spaces, emptiness, and the spaces in between.” 

About the Artist

Gabrielle Wambaugh primarily works with ceramics. She graduated from the Beaux-Arts in Paris and works and lives in Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, Picardy, France.  

Wambaugh won the Altadis Prize in 2002, with a first monograph published by Actes Sud, and she received her first public commission in 2003 in the city of Daegu, South Korea. In 2005 and 2006, she was invited for the research program at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, City of Ceramics. In 2007-8, 2014, 2018, 2022 and 2023, she was invited for new research on stoneware and explored "fusions" at the European Ceramic Work Centre (EKWC) Holland. As a Norma Lipman Research Fellowship, she lived for several years in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and received publication support from the Arts Council of England. 

Wambaugh's work has been featured in numerous museums, art centers, and private galleries in Europe, the United States, South Korea, and China, Le Grand Hornu in Belgium, the Capitol Museum in Rome, the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy, as well as the Prince's Palace of Monaco. She has participated in Ceramix at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, the Netherlands, the Sèvres Museum and the Maison Rouge, Fondation Antoine de Galbert.

For more information, visit Roughly Embroidered.