Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Marjorie Dial

Posted by petra.sairanen

MATERIA ANIMA

• Dates: November 24, 2025 – March 6, 2026
• Opening reception: Friday, January 16, 5-7pm
• Artist talk: Tuesday, January 20, 11am-12 noon
• Gallery hours:
  • Monday – Friday 9am – 4pm
  • Saturdays by appointment (free parking)

We have a long human history with clay. This sticky, malleable material can be found in the fertile soils to which humans migrated and therefore had access. Clay allowed us to store food, water, and fuel. It gave us tools for preparing and cooking food, bricks for construction, and clay tablets for recordkeeping. It was an essential material to almost every civilization. We have evidence of some cultures where ceramic vessels were used for ritualistic purposes, ways of advocating for invisible needs, and it is these historic vessels that interest Marjorie Dial, particularly their function as related to life, death, meaning, safety, and agency.

One of the notable examples of ritualistic ceramic vessels are the Aramaic Spell Bowls of the 6th and 7th Century AD Mesopotamia. These bowls had spells or prayers written in concentric lettering around the borders of the vessel, with an image of the “problem” at the center of the bowl. They were placed in different parts of the home (often buried under the threshold) to ward off danger, bring fortune, protect, or resolve problems. Their placement gave them power. The collagraph intaglio prints on the walls of this exhibition, titled Summoning, are responses to Aramaic spell bowls that Dial made by carving plates on a potter’s wheel. Dial’s prints have the images floating in and out of the picture plane across the gallery, summoning their power and purpose, reminding us of the invisible traits we share as living beings for such basic needs as meaning, safety, and agency. They are imprints, ghosts, images of our continued connection to history and the formerly living. They are invocations of our shared humanity.

The title of this exhibition, MATERIA ANIMA, is based on the Latin philosophical concept meaning “life force in matter”.  Jane Bennett, who wrote the 2011 book Vibrant Matter on art and materiality, calls this “thing power”. Dial works with a lexicon of vessel forms: transmitters, receivers, warnings, and storage vessels. The transmitter sculptures in this exhibition, variously sized antennae-shaped vessels topped with bowls of molten glass and gemstones, occupy corners, form clusters, and are all placed directly on the floor without a pedestal, as if connected to the earth by a current. A series of three “Sentinels”, black monitor screen-like forms with aggressively pulled and dragged clay, are arranged at the entrance, inviting the viewer into a kind of center of power. Dial has also shared a grouping of five large storage vessels titled Provisions. The vessels are made from bands of clay borrowed from off-cuts from other vessels, and patched together seams out, like an inside-out dress shirt. In the arrangement, Dial is evoking hoards, or caches of vessels discovered in archeological sites, which were made up of containers of fuel, grain, water, wine, seeds, honey, and everything that was needed to survive. Symmetrically opposite to Provisions, Dial has placed Dreadnaught, a black, unyielding battleship form evoking a void. Thus, life and death occupy opposite ends of the gallery.

We are all, in different ways, experiencing feelings of helplessness, fear, anxiety, lack of provisions, unknown futures. This is an exhibition about things that stay the same. Human needs for unseen things. Our need for understanding death, understanding life, and having protection, safety, and agency. Petra Sairanen, Helzer Gallery Director

About the artist

Marjorie Dial found art later in life after having a family. She took her first class in ceramics at PCC Rock Creek, then earned an MFA Degree at Oregon College of Arts and Crafts in 2019. She holds a BA from Yale University (1994). Dial is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice includes sculpture, print-making, and writing. She develops bodies of work through space-specific interactions, research, and frenetic making. Her interests lie in the capacity for work to shift meanings, engage in storytelling, and attune to information outside of conscious awareness. In 2018, Dial founded an artist residency in North Carolina called Township10. This project focuses on the intimacy, intensity, and transformational qualities of studio life.

Her work has been shown in exhibitions, at venues including Eutectic Gallery, Portland, OR; Front of House, Portland, OR; Ash Street Project Gallery, Portland, OR; T Project Gallery, Portland, OR, and Hoffman Gallery, Portland, OR. Dial received the MFA Award of Distinction at OCAC, was invited to attend the Center for Contemporary Ceramics at CSULB as a Resident Artist in 2019, and is represented by PDX Contemporary Art.

All work is courtesy of PDX Contemporary Art.