MISSOULA, MONT.- The Missoula Art Museum presents Ellen Ornitz: Burnt Fossils, a new exhibition of ceramic vessels. Ornitz is most well-known as a sculptor but has recently renewed her practice during the pandemic with this series of 25 ceramic vessels. Her palette is limited to the color of the clay and the influence of smoke during the primitive low-firing technique. The vessels are intended, as she says, “to look unearthed, time-scoured and fossilized.”

This fascination carries over from her sculpture series, which were inspired by the exhumed bodies of Pompeii and Iron Age “bog” people from northern Europe, the details of their faces and clothing preserved by ash and peat tannins respectively. Ornitz is an avid gardener who enjoys working in the earth and her vessels often reveal the imprint of leaves and plants.

“MAM’s mission to present artwork relevant to the Montana community includes ceramics and ceramic artists. Ellen is an integral part of the Montana arts community, from her career at the Emerson Gallery to her decades-long studio practice,” said Brandon Reintjes, senior curator at the Missoula Art Museum. “MAM has featured her in the past and we have been watching her career with interest as she explores new processes. We were especially drawn to this series as she created these works during the pandemic as she re-positioned her practice towards vessels. She approaches the vessel shape as a sculpture with a distinct lens of bodily form. We are excited to show her again with a completely new body of work,” he continued.

Ellen Ornitz has been a practicing ceramic and mixed media artist for nearly fifty years in the Gallatin Valley. Ornitz is a full-time artist following her time at the Emerson Center for Arts and Culture in Bozeman as the curator of exhibitions and education. She earned a B.A. in Painting and Printmaking from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Masters in Secondary Art Education from the University of Indiana, Bloomington. She studied ceramics and sculpture with post-graduate work at Montana State University with John Buck and Akio Takamori.

She has exhibited at the Missoula Art Museum, University of Montana, Yellowstone Art Museum, Holter Museum of Art, Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art, Aunt Dofe's Hall of Recent Memory, Turman-Larison Gallery, Blackwood Salon, and Radius Gallery, and was a finalist for the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon.

Burnt Fossils opened March 4 and will be on view at the Missoula Art Museum through June 4, 2022.