Whispered Memories

Sheryl Zacharia's table-sized ceramics are a conversation between geometry and fluidity. Blending technical brilliance with a lyrical approach inspired by nature, music and painting, each hand-built sculpture reflects Zacharia’s fascination with form, color, and pattern.

Her abstract forms begin as drawings/sketches, which develop to refined shapes as she determines how to build a piece. Using the ancient Roman technique of terra sigillata (a liquid clay) to achieve a glaze-like, shiny surface, she hand-paints each of her pieces. The scratched surfaces, kaleidoscopic colors, complex patterning, and the tension between positive and negative spaces demonstrates Zacharia’s bold interpretation of the vessel form.

Sheryl Zacharia lives and works in Santa Fe, NM. She majored in painting at Southampton College but spent many years pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter and performing on the NYC club circuit before turning to ceramics in 1996. Zacharia has mounted numerous solo and group exhibitions including Albuquerque Museum (Albuquerque, NM), San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts (San Angelo, TX), Atlantic Gallery (New York, NY), Caza Sikes Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), William Havu Gallery (Denver, CO), Winterowd Fine Art (Santa Fe, NM), Tansey Contemporary (Santa Fe, NM), amongst others. She has been on the Faculties of Greenwich House Pottery in NYC, The Art School at Old Church in Demarest NJ, and The West Side Y in NYC, and has taught numerous workshops including at Harvard University, Kingsborough College, and most recently at Ghost Ranch and Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico.