| Neil Tetkowski | ||
| Birth Date: 1955 |
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Artist Gallery |
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| Neil Tetkowski was born in 1955 in Buffalo, New York. Both of his parents were in the arts providing an early foundation for what would become a lifetime passion for creativity, education, and a fascination with diverse cultures of the world. As a child he had the opportunity to travel extensively with his family. At five he went to school in Siena, Italy for several years. By the time he was 8 he had crossed the Atlantic three times by ocean liner and had visited museums and cultural landmarks in more than twenty countries.
Neil holds degrees from Alfred University and from Illinois State University. He has been a professor at Denison University in Ohio, the State University College at Buffalo and at Parson School of Design in New York City.
Tetkowski’s media choice is clay, which he feels is the perfect medium to express his relationship to the natural environment. In his work, he creates a tension between the natural aesthetic of clay and the found object. The basis of his technique is terra sigilatta which means “sealed earth”. It is an ancient Greek method where refined slip (liquid clay) is applied to the dry surface of the piece before it is fired. Tetkowski has modified the tradition by incorporating salt vapors into the hot kiln. Focusing on the impact of vast transitions upon nature and humankind, he contrasts the natural and the synthetic, the past and the present. Each work is a metaphor of the physical world, which reflects the ethereal world.
In 2000, Tetkowski conceived and built a sculpture at the United Nations using a blend of earth materials from every nation. There he physically involved people from every country of the world.
Tetkowski lives in Manhattan and is the Director of University Galleries at Kean University in Union, New Jersey.
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