Beverly Semmes confounds our expectations of ceramics in her approach to a medium that is generally associated with adjectives more akin to delicate and refined than clunky and raw. Her oversized pots, or stacks, are irregular and distorted forms, with a crude tactility. These polarities work to create an intermediary space inviting discourse on the paradoxes surrounding the artist's use of Vessel as metaphor for the female body and culture's representation of the feminine.

Painted in bold reds and oranges, these stacked vessels retain visible palm and fingerprints, emphasizing Semmes’s physical engagement with clay, while multiple protruding “handles” create striking negative spaces throughout the forms. Like her well-known uninhabited and oversized dress sculptures, these works resist convention, deliberately stepping outside the rules of traditional craft.