Bill Stewart (1941-2020)

Nationally acclaimed clay sculptor Bill Stewart creates playful and expressionistic ceramic figures which frequently have both human and animal characteristics. This iconic Shaman was the first in a series he recently developed and exhibited at the Indigo Gallery in Buffalo. They are designed to evoke an amusing, benevolent, yet surreal fantasy world as characters derived from artifacts, the circus, toys, comics, costumes, ancient art and internationally diverse religious iconography. In pieces like Shaman, Stewart is influenced by motifs from Native American and African art, which he blends with pop culture. His large, monochromatic Shaman exists in a mythological time — representing a timeless human relationship with spiritual qualities of nature. (Nancy Weekly, Head of Collections and Charles Cary Rumsey Curator, 2011)