Commissioned as part of Sarasota Art Museum’s Inside Out Program, Hatch’s new site-specific installation, Amalgam (2024), spans two floors, visually linking the Jan Schmidt Loggia and Mark & Irene Kauffman Arcade. Consisting of more than 470 earthenware plates hand-painted in white, blue, and 22 karat gold luster, Amalgam is conceived as one ensemble framed by the four arched windows. Hatch also plays with the empty spaces, so that viewers perceive lines and patterns between plates adjacent to each other. The whole composition may also be experienced from multiple points of view, from near and far, inside and outside of the Museum.
The patterns and motifs deployed in Hatch’s plates in Amalgam are drawn from historical ceramics, such as 15th-century Chinese Ming-dynasty Hanap drinking vessels, 19th-century Moroccan Fassi (from Fez) ware, 17th- and 18th-century Dutch Delft vases, 18th-century Mexican Talavera tile panels, and 19th- and 20th-century Japanese-inspired English ceramics designed by Christopher Dresser. By creating a cross-cultural bricolage of blue-and-white motifs ubiquitous in these ceramic wares, Hatch brings to the fore material and visual evidence of centuries-old global trade networks and the resultant shared aesthetics that connect us. As seen in Amalgam, Hatch’s research-based, critical practice contributes to a genre of fine art ceramics with as rigorous a practice as painting or sculpture.
From Sarasota Magazine May 29, 2024:
"A New Commission at Sarasota Art Museum Explores Our Shared Aesthetics
Molly Hatch’s installation, “Amalgam,” consists of more than 480 hand-printed earthenware plates.
Walk into Sarasota Art Museum right now and you’ll see a giant new commission: Amalgam, a “plate painting”—that is, a large-scale ceramic installation—by American ceramic artist Molly Hatch.
Hatch’s work has been exhibited internationally, with permanent installations in many museums, and in commissions for brands like Tiffany & Co. She’s also created commercial work through collaborations with retailers like Anthropologie. For nearly 20 years, her art has focused on merging the distinctive look of painted surfaces with the physicality of ceramics. Drawing on the history of decorative arts and her rigorous practice as a painter, her work examines the meaning of inherited objects in our lives by defamiliarizing traditional patterns and motifs and scaling traditional designs into large pieces that venture into abstraction. Amalgam was commissioned by Sarasota Art Museum specifically for the museum’s Jan Schmidt Loggia and Mark & Irene Kauffman Arcade. It spans two floors, consists of more than 480 earthenware plates hand-painted in white, blue, and gold luster, and is framed by the four arched windows. With Amalgam, Hatch also plays with empty spaces, so that viewers perceive lines and patterns between plates adjacent to each other. The whole composition can be experienced from multiple points of view inside and outside of the museum.
The patterns and motifs in Amalgam are drawn from historical ceramics, such as 15th-century Chinese Ming-dynasty Hanap drinking vessels, 19th-century Moroccan Fassi ware, 17th- and 18th-century Dutch Delft vases, 18th-century Mexican Talavera tile panels, and 19th- and 20th-century Japanese-inspired English ceramics designed by Christopher Dresser. The installation speaks to both centuries-old global trade networks and the shared aesthetics—in this case, the ceramics’ blue-and-white motifs—that connect us.
Additionally, Hatch says, she’s come to realize that much her art comes from a feminist angle. By working with materials like ceramics, which have often been referred to as “women’s work,” she seeks to reclaim a place for the medium and for women in the art history canon.
“I think I have always sought to find a place for myself as a woman in the story of art, and my work has become a way of doing so,” Hatch says.
Amalgam by Molly Hatch is on view at Sarasota Museum of Art through April 26, 2026. For more information, click here."
MENAGERIE, 2023 One of 3 works commissioned by architect Peter Marino for Tiffany & Co. Blue Box Cafe Dubai. Referencing renderings for a brooch from the Tiffany & Co archives, this work reinterprets the iconic brand's history and presents it anew with white gold accents. Made using an entirely new process, MENAGERIE measures 72" H x 72" W x 2" D, is composed of 95 hand-thrown and hand-painted earthenware plates that hang in an organic, jewel-like arrangement.
CITRINE, 2023 and ROSEATE, 2023 Two of 3 works commissioned by architect Peter Marino for Tiffany & Co. Blue Box Cafe Dubai. Referencing renderings for a brooch from the Tiffany & Co archives, these works reinterpret the iconic brand's history and presents it anew with white gold accents. Made using an entirely new process, CITRINE measures 72" H x 36" W x 2" D, each is composed of 105 hand-thrown and hand-painted earthenware plates that hang in an organic, jewel-like arrangement.
Commissioned by architect Peter Marino for Tiffany & Co. Blue Box Cafe Taipei, this work references renderings for a brooch from the Tiffany & Co archives, this work reinterprets the iconic brand's history and presents it anew with white gold accents. Made using an entirely new process, this work is composed of over 100 hand-thrown and hand-painted earthenware plates that hang in an organic, jewel-like arrangement.
One of 3 works commissioned in 2023 by architect Peter Marino for Tiffany & Co. New York Landmark store. Referencing renderings for a brooch from the Tiffany & Co archives, this work reinterprets the iconic brand's history and presents it anew with white gold accents. Made using an entirely new process, ROSEATE measures 59" H x 51" W x 2" D, is composed of 55 hand-thrown and hand-painted earthenware plates that hang in an organic, jewel-like arrangement. See it on the 6th floor of the Landmark in the Blue Box Cafe.
One of 3 works commissioned in 2023 by architect Peter Marino for Tiffany & Co. New York Landmark store. Referencing renderings for a brooch from the Tiffany & Co archives, this work reinterprets the iconic brand's history and presents it anew with white gold accents. Made using an entirely new process, CYNOSURE measures 61" H x 58" W x 2" D, is composed of 217 hand-thrown and hand-painted earthenware plates that hang in an organic, jewel-like arrangement. See it on the 6th floor of the Landmark in the Blue Box Cafe.
One of 3 works commissioned in 2023 by architect Peter Marino for Tiffany & Co. New York Landmark store. Referencing renderings for silver mirrors from the Tiffany & Co archives, this work reinterprets the iconic brand's history and presents it anew with 22 karat gold accents and a custom developed Tiffany Blue glaze used only for this work. Measuring 58" H x 54" W x 3" D, PRECEDE is composed of 40 hand-cast and hand-painted porcelain tiles that hang in a grid. See it on the 6th floor of the Landmark.
DUCERE, 2022 Commissioned by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for “Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design” running February 18–May 28, 2023. From Artnet News article titled “8 Essential Shows to See Around the World in 2023, From a Fresh Look at Alexander McQueen’s Genius to the Louvre’s Treasures of Love.” Artnet News says: “Designs by American and Canadian women are the subject of this sprawling exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design. Objects from the mid-19th century through today highlight the breadth of styles and media that female designers made while marginalized in social, political, and personal settings. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has also commissioned ceramicist Molly Hatch to create a giant mosaic of 198 hand-painted plates that will take over the exhibition pavilion.”
Description: For DUCERE, Hatch appropriates and deconstructs the surface design of historic British industrial designer Christopher Dresser’s 1872 Minton Moon Flask. Hatch worked to create a repeating pattern offering a visual sense of unity and repetition both for the viewers eye, but also to mimic the historic appropriation and repetition of eastern patterns by western makers/designers throughout history. Christopher Dresser’s significant role in history of industrial design is co-opted by Hatch in her use of Dreser’s surface design in DUCERE as a contemporary woman designer and artist claiming space in the art and design fields.
The original ceramic flask references cloisonné, a straightforward surface quality to achieve on the surface of Hatch’s own plates in DUCERE. Each plate is hand-painted, with most colors requiring 4 layers of glaze material to achieve a solid surface, some requiring 5 layers. With an additional 3 layers of clear glaze and a separate firing to apply the hand-painted, 22K gold luster. Because of the intense layering of glaze material, there is a slightly raised surface where the glazes are, leaving a recessed area for the gold luster, creating a textured surface that helps to emulate cloisonné.
Year: 2022
Materials: 198 hand-painted earthenware plates with glaze and 22k gold luster
Measurements: 90h x 240w x 1.5d inches
CENTRIOLE, 2022 is a deconstruction of the surface of an Owen Jones depiction of the pattern on a Chinese decorative vase in his well known 1866 text "Examples of Chinese Ornament". CENTRIOLE explores cultural fusion through inherited and appropriated language of ornament. Highlighting the movement and linear nature of the historic rendering through shifts in scale and color, CENTRIOLE is a contemporary lens to its historic counterpart.
Year: 2022
Materials: 70 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates with underglaze, glaze and 22K gold luster
Dimensions: 66h x 84w x 2d inches
PANTHERE, 2022 A privately commissioned work comprised of 42 hand-painted earthenware plates inspired by 18th century naturalist Arcadian landscapes and a nod to the powerful history and symbolism of the panther.
Year: 2022
Materials: 42 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze and glaze
Dimensions: 60h x 70w x 1.5d inches
DELFT BLOEM, 2022 a privately commissioned work comprised of a collage of 15th century Dutch still life paintings to create a warm and light version of Hatch’s body of work deconstructing the Dutch still life tradition. Smaller scale and intimate space required the development of an entirely new plate form for hanging.
Year: 2022
Materials: 32 hand-thrown and hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze, stains and glaze
Measurements: 20h x 40w x 1d inches
A private commission for a client with ties to the Cotopaxi region of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador. With a summit at 19,347 ft (5,897 m) Cotopaxi is one of the tallest, active volcanoes in the world.
Comprised of 56 hand-cast and hand-painted porcelain bricks, this work creates a lenticular-style image that shifts and changes as the viewer moves around the work in the space. 24 karat gold-luster activates the dimensionally of the piece and highlights the right side view of the piece.
Year: 2022
Materials: 56 hand-cast and hand-painted porcelain bricks with underglaze, glaze and gold luster.
Dimensions: 44h x 84w x 3d inches
Comprised of 37 hand-painted 12” diameter earthenware plates, CHINOISERIE BIRD reinterprets the lush blue and white surface of an 18th century Delft charger depicting a Dutch rendering of traditional Chinese crane and pine motifs that symbolize longevity.
This work was made using the same traditional tin glaze that the Dutch used to mimic the much-coveted Chinese export porcelains of the era. With a combination go royal blue glaze and cobalt stain, this work mimics not only the surface of its historic counterpart, but the process as well.
Year: 2022
Materials: 37 hand painted 12” diameter earthenware plates with tin glaze, glaze and cobalt stain
Dimensions: 64h x 84w x 1.5d inches
A monumental wall installation measuring 18 1/2' wide and 12' tall, comprised of 124 hand thrown and hand painted porcelain plates ranging in scale from 6" in diameter to 24" in diameter. Axis is a deconstruction of the surface of an Owen Jones depiction of the pattern on a Chinese decorative vase in his well known 1866 text "Examples of Chinese Ornament". AXIS explores cultural fusion through inherited and appropriated language of ornament. Highlighting the movement and linear nature of the historic rendering through shifts in scale and color, AXIS is a contemporary lens to its historic counterpart.
Year: 2021
Materials: 124 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates with underglaze and glaze
Dimensions: 222 W x 144 H x 3 D inches
Reflecting a collage of 15th century Dutch still life paintings across 60 hand-painted earthenware plates. The central image of the work, a large vase of vibrantly painted flowers is derived from 15th century Dutch painting, more specifically “pronkstilleven” (Dutch for ‘ostentatious still life’). Each individual plate serves as a canvas; together, the plates reveal the intricate abstract floral motif of their source material. Bridging the gap decorative and fine art the glazed surfaces of earthenware plates collectively become a fragmented canvas for painterly re-rendering.
Year: 2022
Materials: 60 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze and glaze
Dimensions: 60h x 100w x 1.5d inches
A monumental arch-shaped 20 foot tall wall installation comprised of over 200 hand-painted earthenware plates. The central image of the work is a magnified rendering of a coral reef of vibrantly painted flora and fauna of the Pacific is derived from a collage of several 19th century English lithographs by William Saville-Kent. Each round surface of a plate serves as a canvas for the painterly abstraction of the whole; together, the composition reveals the vibrance and coherence of its source material. Bridging the gap between decorative and fine art, the glazed surfaces of these earthenware plates collectively become a fragmented canvas for a delicate, painterly rendering.
Year: 2021
Materials: 207 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze and glaze
Dimensions: 240h x 132w x 1.5d inches
One of four works for the inaugural exhibition Making Place Matter, marking the grand opening of the Clay Studio’s new South Kensington building opening in April 2022. Linea Stack reflects Hatch’s personal and cultural heritage and honors the concept of inheritance. Comprised of 68 hand-cast hexagonal porcelain blocks, Linea Stack is a new approach to deconstruction and cultural fusion of pattern and the collective histories they represent.
Curator Elizabeth Essner says of Linea Stack:
“Hatch has continually transformed the plate's intimate scale into the monumental, an active assertion of taking up space, both literally and figuratively. Linea Stack moves this into wholly new sculptural territory, moving off the wall into three-dimensions. This sculptural leap takes up new artistic territory as Hatch merges the snakeskin – and its transformational symbolism – with the ancestral influence of her grandmother’s floral. The allure of golden luster coats the edges of the hexagonal brick assemblage, further asserting its sculptural presence while nodding to the gold-tipped border of a porcelain plate.“
Year: 2021
Materials: 68 hand-cast porcelain hexagonal bricks, hand-painted underglaze, glaze and 22k gold luster
Dimensions: 35h x 52w x 12.5d inches
One of four works for the inaugural exhibition Making Place Matter, marking the grand opening of the Clay Studio’s new South Kensington building opening in April 2022.
This piece explores a new way to use the ceramic object to deconstruct and examine surface pattern in the physical realm. Composed of 45 hand-cast and altered porcelain discs that protrude from the wall in a cascading height. This work deconstructs an 18th century floral pattern and juxtaposes the historic with the contemporary with the treatment of the sides of each disc with a cobalt snakeskin pattern, pushing the viewer to see the imagery in news ways.
Curator Elizabeth Essner writes of Linea:
“Linea, named to "honor the idea of inheritance” Molly Hatch was born into a long line of women artists: her grandmother was a painter, and her mother was a farmer by trade who has maintained a painting practice. A floral textile from the collection of the Cooper Hewitt, lineage unknown, was selected for its resonance with those found in the faded grandeur of her grandmother's home. In Linea, Hatch imposes a kind of grid onto the fabric's wandering flowers. Lifted away from the wall onto circular pillbox forms, they are forced into circular clarity. These are met by blank circles whereby the pattern's absence is reinforced, akin to a family member whose physical presence is long gone but still felt.“
Year: 2022
Materials: 45 hand-cast porcelain discs, hand-painted underglaze, glaze
Dimensions: 45h x 80w x 4d inches
The second of four works created for the inaugural exhibition Making Place Matter, marking The Clay Studio’s new South Kensington Philadelphia building opening in April, 2022. This piece is an abstraction of a small plate housed in the collections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art depicting the historic Philadelphia Waterworks site, today’s location of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Using gold luster to mirror the viewer back into the work itself, Philadelphia Waterworks places the past with the present and examines how history informs our understanding of place today.
Year: 2021
Materials: 65 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates with underglaze, glaze, stain and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 70h x 81w x 2.5d inches
Using imagery sourced from the collections at the Philadelphia Art Museum, specifically George and Martha Washington's first tableware service that features an Ouroboros delicately rendered around the rim of each plate. Composed of 37 hand-painted earthenware plates with 22 karat gold luster. Ouroboros is an abstraction of a snake eating its own tail-a historic symbol of life, death and rebirth. One of five works created for the 2022 exhibition Making Place Matter at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia. Funded by a Pew Grant, the exhibition marks the opening of the Clay Studio’s new South Kensington Philadelphia neighborhood location.
Year: 2021
Materials: 37 hand painted earthenware plates with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 70w x 62h x 1.5d inches
Created during the recent COVID-19 quarantine, Progress is the first sculptural wall installation comprised of 57 hand-thrown, porcelain discs. The disc provides an additional dimensional format for re-contextualizing historic imagery and pattern.
The front surface of Progress is a magnification and reworking of an 18th century Indian weaving. By increasing the scale of the textile, it is transformed into a hand-painted, highly digitized, and decidedly contemporary pattern. Juxtaposing the rigid graphic design of the work’s face is a painted malachite pattern that adorns each disc’s profile.
Malachite, considered a powerful metaphysical stone, is often used for healing, positive transformation, and achieving harmony and balance. Much like the act of weaving itself, where each thread contributes to the ultimate pattern, each component of Progress is essential to the wholeness of the final work.
The slightly concave discs range in both size and depth. The width and depth of each of the discs decreases from left to right, exposing more and more of the painted profile of each disc, taking advantage of the sculptural disc form as a three-dimensional painting surface. The experience of the work changes as the work is viewed from different angles.
Year: 2020
Materials: 57 Hand-cast porcelain forms with hand-painted glaze and underglaze
Dimensions: 52Hh x 51w x 3d inches
A ceramic wall installation comprised of 252 hand-painted plates. The central image of the work, a bouquet of vibrantly painted flowers is derived from 15th century Dutch painting, more specifically “pronkstilleven” (Dutch for ‘ostentatious still life’). Each individual plate serves as a canvas; together, the plates reveal the intricate abstract floral motif of their source material. Bridging the gap decorative and fine art the glazed surfaces of earthenware plates collectively become a fragmented canvas for painterly re-rendering.
Year: 2019
Materials: 252 hand-painted earthenware plates with glaze and underglaze
Dimensions: 280w x 90h x 1.5d inches
A ceramic wall installation comprised of 70 hand-painted earthenware plates. The central image of the work, a large vase of vibrantly painted flowers is derived from 15th century Dutch painting, more specifically “pronkstilleven” (Dutch for ‘ostentatious still life’). Each individual plate serves as a canvas; together, the plates reveal the intricate abstract floral motif of their source material. Bridging the gap decorative and fine art the glazed surfaces of earthenware plates collectively become a fragmented canvas for painterly re-rendering.
Year: 2018
Materials: 70 hand-painted earthenware plates with glaze and underglaze
Dimensions: 80h x 56w x 1.5d inches
A wall installation comprised of 70 hand-painted plates. The central image of the work, a large vase of vibrantly painted flowers is derived from 15th century Dutch painting, more specifically “pronkstilleven” (Dutch for ‘ostentatious still life’). Each individual plate serves as a canvas for the artist’s brush strokes; together, the plates reveal the intricate abstract floral motif of their source material. Bridging the gap decorative and fine art the glazed surfaces of earthenware plates collectively become a fragmented canvas for a delicate, painterly re-rendering.
Materials: 70 hand-painted earthenware plates with glaze and underglaze
Dimensions: 80h x 56w x 1.5d inches
A wall installation comprised of 35 hand-painted plates. The central image of the work, a large vase of vibrantly painted flowers is derived from 15th century Dutch painting, more specifically “pronkstilleven” (Dutch for ‘ostentatious still life’). Each round surface serves as a canvas for the artist’s brush strokes; together, the plates reveal the intricate abstract floral motif of their source material. Bridging the gap decorative and fine art the glazed surfaces of earthenware plates collectively become a fragmented canvas for the delicate, painterly re-rendering.
Materials: 35 hand-painted earthenware plates with glaze and underglaze
Dimensions 56h x 40w x 1.5d inches
Sourcing Owen Jones’ “The Grammar of Chinese Ornament," Prelude reworks an 18th century Chinese pattern designed for the European export market to address cultural fusion and diffusion. This installation of triangular shaped wall tiles creates a large scale, three-dimensional ceramic lenticular. The surfaces of the tiles are hand-painted with underglaze and glaze over a grid of 28 porcelain triangular bricks, finished with hand-painted gold luster.
From the left perspective the design is rendered in a deep teal and black motif while the right perspective continues the motif in brilliant gold luster and satiny black.
Materials: 28 hand cast porcelain tiles with hand painted glaze and underglaze and 24 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 40h x 50w x 2.5d inches
A new approach to deconstructing historic patterning and surface through the installation of triangular shaped wall tiles that create a large scale, three-dimensional ceramic lenticular.
From the left perspective an 18th century Arcadian garden landscape from George-Louis Le Rouge’s “Jardin Anglo-Chinois, Details des Nouveaux Jardins a la Mode, 1784” reveals itself across the tiles. When viewed from the right perspective, a 17th century Iznic tile pattern is revealed in brilliant gold luster. The floral pattern is inspired by a Turkish tile panel in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The dual composition of historic pastoral rendering and traditional pattern work both visual representations of paradise echo each other in this lenticular wall installation.
Materials: 50 hand-cast porcelain tile bricks hand-painted with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Measurements: 64h x 69w x 3d inches
Staccato adds to the visual exploration of historic while bridging the gap between the decorative and fine art. Staccato diffuses an 18th century Chinese export pattern from Owen Jones’ text “The Grammar of Chinese Ornament” to create an entirely new and abstracted hand-painted pattern in luxe copper luster and royal blue. Over the gridded installation of 70 earthenware plates, the glazed surfaces collectively become a fragmented canvas for a delicate, painterly re-rendering.
Materials: 70 hand painted plates with glaze, underglaze and copper luster
Dimensions: 70h x 120w x 1.5d inches
Commissioned by the Newark Museum, Repertoire is a site-specific, three-part installation that calls attention to the iconic architecture in the Charles W. Engelhard Court at the heart of the museum. The installation is designed to reinterpret and reinvigorate interest in the global textiles in the museum’s American, African and Asian collections.
Repertoire honors the Museum’s 107-year-tradition of collecting contemporary ceramic art. Bridging contemporary design, ceramics and painting, each of the three niches present an image pixilated in underglaze decoration across approximately 186 hand-painted white earthenware plates, totaling over 500 plates in all. The design of each of the textiles is broken up and transformed as the plates’ surfaces reflect light back into the court.
Hatch is known for her murals using hundreds of underglaze-painted ceramic plates, including two major installations at the High Museum in Atlanta. Repertoire is her largest commission to date, commemorating the retirement of Curator of Decorative Arts Ulysses Dietz after 37 years.
“Two years ago I approached Molly Hatch about doing a project for the Newark Museum,” Dietz said. “Molly, the daughter of a painter and a dairy farmer, bridges contemporary design, ceramics and painting in a way that resonates perfectly with the Newark Museum.”
The Museum has been displaying ceramics as art since 1910, and Dietz thought it was fitting to cap his career with a major installation by a rising young American artist. Repertoire also celebrates another major cornerstone of the Museum’s collection: textiles.
Africa is represented by Dyula Woven, inspired by a rare Dyula wrapper from the Ivory Coast. Made in the early 20th century, it was collected by the Museum’s founding director John Cotton Dana in 1928. For the American niche, a blue-and-white coverlet of wool and cotton from the 1840s. Titled Bergen Jacquard, it honors the important New Jersey component of the Museum’s decorative arts collection. The third niche, Qianlong Silk, is based on an 18th-century Chinese velvet throne carpet, with stylized peonies and a dancing crane.
Each of the three niches present an image pixilated in slip decoration across approximately 186 factory-made white earthenware plates, totaling over 500 plates in all. The design of each of the textiles is broken up and transformed as the plates’ concave, shiny surfaces reflect light back into the court.
“Repertoire evokes the pervasive presence of art in everyday life through ceramics and textiles across human history and civilization,” Dietz said.
The installation of Repertoire was made possible in part by Barbara and William Weldon, Raymond and Mary Courtien and the Newark Museum Volunteer Organization.
Materials: 558 hand-painted earthenware plates with glaze and underglaze
Dimensions: Each niche measures 14’ h x 7'w x 1.5”d
A work inspired by a nineteenth-century Chinese Export porcelain plate from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Composed of 37 earthenware hand-painted and lustered plates, the glazed surface of Similis becomes a fragmented canvas for a delicate, painterly re-rendering. Installed in a geometric honeycomb pattern, each round surface serves as an individual abstraction; together, the plates reveal the intricate abstract floral motif of their historic counterpart.
Materials: 37 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze, engobe and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 84h x 65w x 1.5d inches
Composed of 37 earthenware hand-painted plates, the glazed surface of Crescere becomes a fragmented canvas for a painterly re-rendering based on an early thirteenth-century Islamic plate from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Innovations in early Islamic luxury ceramics from this time include minai ware, which introduced polychrome enamel designs and gilding onto previously glazed and fired pottery. Installed in a geometric honeycomb pattern, each round surface serves as an abstract canvas; together, the plates reveal the intricate arabesque motif of their historic counterpart.
Materials: 37 earthenware plates with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 84″ H x 65″ W x 1.5″ D
The hand-glazed and hand-painted gold luster surface of Aria becomes a fragmented canvas for a painterly ceramic rendering inspired by an early thirteenth-century Islamic plate from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Innovations in early Islamic ceramics from this time include minai ware, which introduced polychrome enamel designs and gilding onto previously glazed and fired pottery. Installed in a geometric honeycomb pattern, each round surface serves as an abstract canvas; together, the plates reveal the intricate structure of the original arabesque motif of the historic counterpart.
Materials: 37 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 84h x 65w x 1.5d inches
This intimate work reflects the surfaces of the Unicorn Tapestries, a series of seven tapestries made in the South Netherlands around 1495–1505, and now housed in The Cloisters in New York. The tapestries depict a group of hunters in tracking a unicorn through a landscape. Working to focus on the abstract beauty of the landscape itself, this small plate painting extracts flora from the larger narrative of the original tapestries, creating a focus on the small details of the historic weaving.
Materials: 16 hand thrown and hand painted porcelain plates with engobes and glaze
Dimensions: 26h x 26w x 1.5d inches
Comprised of 169 hand-painted earthenware plates, this 20 foot wide by 14 foot high installation of an abstract world map represents cultural regions through interpretation of historic and traditional patterns. Commissioned by Partners Insurance for their global headquarters, this monumental work was designed to match the organization’s mission to promote diversity and inclusion.
Permanently installed in Somerville, MA
Using ceramic surfaces as both her canvas and subject matter, Myrmidon, a hand-painted wall installation is a historically-inspired contemporary representation and celebration of the Chinese export porcelain of the 18th century. Myrmidon is contemporary chinoiserie, a popular seventeenth and eighteenth-century aesthetic that persists.
Composed of 63 earthenware hand-painted plates, the glazed surfaces of the plates collectively become a fragmented canvas for a delicate, painterly re-rendering of a blue and white lidded jar sourced from an eighteenth-century French watercolor from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With a shimmering 22-karat gold gilded background, Myrmidon contemporizes historic decorative arts.
Materials: 63 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 70” W x 90” H x 1.5” D
Using ceramic surfaces as both her canvas and subject matter, Illume, a hand-painted wall installation, a historically-inspired contemporary representation and celebration of the Chinese export porcelain of the 18th century. Illume is contemporary chinoiserie, a popular seventeenth and eighteenth-century aesthetic that persists.
Composed of 63 earthenware hand-painted plates, the glazed surfaces of the plates collectively become a fragmented canvas for a delicate, painterly re-rendering of a blue and white lidded jar sourced from an eighteenth-century French watercolor from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With a shimmering 22-karat gold gilded background, Illume contemporizes historic decorative arts.
Materials: 45 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 50w x 90h x 1.5d inches
Highlighting the visual brilliance of an 18th century Chinese textile, Verse, a hand-painted ceramic wall installation is a gilded deconstruction of historic pattern. Like the export porcelains of the same era, fabric and Chinese motifs were coveted and celebrated. In Verse the opulence of the 18th century is represented in gold overtaking and marbling the original fabric pattern creating a new experience of the familiar.
Comprised of 54 earthenware hand-painted plates, the glazed surface becomes a fragmented canvas for Hatch’s delicate, painterly re-rendering of a blue and white lidded vase, sourced from an 18th century French watercolor from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Surrounded by a shimmering 11 karat gold luster background, Verse simultaneously deconstructs the past through a shimmering, painterly expression of the present.
Materials: 54 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 90w x 60h x 1.5d inches
Paragon sources Chinese ornamental pattern from Owen Jones’ nineteenth-century texts. Paragon extends a series of works exploring the relationship between the historic and the contemporary through the deconstruction of traditional patterns illustrating cultural fusion and diffusion. In Paragon, a more abstract work, an 18th century Chinese floral pattern is rethought as a painting over 63 earthenware plates.
Materials: 63 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 70″ W x 90″ H x 1.5″ D
Commissioned in 2015 by the Woodruff Arts Center and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA for permanent view in a public space on their campus.
The historic surface pattern from the original blue and white Caughley porcelain plate housed from The Frances and Emory Cocke Collection at the High Museum of Art, is re-contextualized in this large-scale 9 foot by 7 foot plate painting on a group of 63 hand-thrown and hand painted porcelain plates.
Materials: 63 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates with stain, glaze and underglaze
Dimensions: 73h x 104w x 2d inches
Physic Garden was commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA as a site specific installation in the lobby of the museum to engage a contemporary audience through historic collections.
Physic Garden creates a painterly take on a set of botanically themed 18th century Chelsea Porcelain Factory plates from the museum's Frances and Emory Cocke English Porcelain Collection. The historic plates depict realistic flora and fauna from London's Chelsea Physic Garden.
The monumental scale of Physic Garden showcases the notion that even the simplest materials can be transformed, challenging the collective idea of what plates on the wall can signify today.
As written by curator Sarah Schleuning
“The use of a common form—the plate—as a canvas to explore and explode a pattern is the dynamic hallmark of contemporary American artist Molly Hatch. This novel artistic approach is well evidenced in Physic Garden (2014), Hatch’s largest commission to date (and first for a museum). In theory, Physic Garden is functional—after all, the plates are dishwasher safe. However, by massing hundreds of plates on a wall, the result far surpasses the practical. Everyday objects together become a surface decoration that overpowers the space, while transforming a modest form, ordinary in material and theme, into the dominator. The work has quickly become one of the iconic pieces at the High Museum of Art, visible to all visitors as they enter the museum. In all, 456 plates—convex, gleaming discs of color—spanning 20 x 17 feet, create a pixilated pattern; at a distance, it comes into focus as a whole work, while up close, it reveals the intricacies of the painterly surfaces full of flora and fauna.”
For full essay, click to read Molly Hatch’s Catalog of work
Materials: 456 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze and glaze
Dimensions: 240h x 190w x 1.5d inches (20h x 16w feet)
Aspire uses motifs from the iconic Meissen Porcelain Manufacturer’s famous Purple Onion tableware pattern. Aspire is the second in an ongoing series of works that explores the relationship between the historic and the contemporary through the deconstruction of traditional tableware patterns. The historic surface pattern is modernized with painterly brush strokes on 60 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates.
The design of each plate is both an abstraction and a highlight of the original tableware, highlighting pattern within pattern. The work's shift in scale from the familiar creates a dramatic shift in understanding. The viewer is directed to look closely at small details in the surface of the historic counterpart through each individual plate's painterly abstraction of the whole.
Materials: 60 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 72h x 72w x 1.5d inches
Claiming the functional surface of the dinner plate as a canvas, Deconstructed Lace sources the historic tableware pattern titled "Blue Fluted Lace" from the Danish Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufacturer.
The design of each plate is both an abstraction and a highlight of the original tableware, highlighting pattern within pattern. The work's shift in scale from the familiar creates a dramatic shift in understanding. The viewer is directed to look closely at small details in the surface of the historic counterpart through each individual plate's painterly abstraction of the whole.
Materials: 93 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates with underglaze and glaze
Dimensions: 96w x 99h x 1.5d inches
Worcester Imari is a ceramic wall installation composed of 99 hand-painted earthenware plates surfaced with glazes and 22 karat gold luster. The intricate patterns and colors painted on the plates comprise Hatch’s contemporary interpretation of a pair of eighteenth-century painted vases with lids belonging to the Frances and Emory Cocke Collection at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.
Through shift in scale and a decontextualization of the historic source imagery, the Imari patterning becomes a contemporary counterpart to the original.
Materials: 99 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze, glaze and 22 karat gold luster
Dimensions: 90h x 110w x 1.5d inches
Recite is composed of 99 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates. The patterned plates collectively present a contemporary interpretation of motifs sourced from historic textiles at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. The viewer’s eye moves through the cascade of plates from left to right following a patterned deconstruction of the original 18th century export Indian Chintz. The viewer is encouraged to focus on smaller and smaller components of the original pattern by separating out individual florals as the piece opens up to the right. A pink glow emanates from behind the plates treated with a neon painted surface that makes for an unusual aura around each plate acknowledging the sculptural space between the plates and the wall.
Materials: 99 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates with underglaze and glaze
Dimensions: 120w x 60h x 2d
In an effort to claim the functional surface of a plate as a painting surface, Render was made sourcing works belonging to the textile collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
By reinterpreting historic fabric patterns on the ceramic surfaces of a group of plates, Render becomes an exploration of the relationship between the historic and the contemporary. Through shifts in scale, color and context, the compositions of the plates both abstract and highlight aspects of the original textile patterns. The work reawakens interest in the historic through 21st-century aesthetic choices.
Materials: 11 hand-thrown and hand-painted porcelain plates with underglaze and glaze
Dimensions: 26h x 38w x 2d
“No art is simply, blithely contemporary. That would be like saying our parents had no influence on us. Today’s art responds to and reacts against yesterday’s art.
Hatch serves up the magisterial on a grid of hand-painted ceramic dinner plates. The grid of circles cleverly breaks up and abstracts the scene, but doesn’t abandon its coherence. Indeed, it spotlights the mark-making.”
-Boston Globe Review of COVET: Modern Riffs on Old Ideas by Cate McQuaid, May 30, 2012
In an effort to claim the functional surface as a painting surface, Render is a group of plate paintings and vases made sourcing the textile and ceramic collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
In the translation and re-working of historic fabric pattern to the ceramic surface of a group of plates, Render becomes an exploration of the relationship between the historic and the contemporary with artworks crossing over categories of decorative art, design and fine art. Through shift in scale, color and context, the compositions of plates both abstract and highlight aspects of the textile patterns, encouraging a new dialog in pattern.
The pair of vases have also been rendered in a new way—scrambling the expected through the creation of multiple planes and an overall rearranging and collaging of historically sourced surface pattern and decoration. Again, encouraging a new experience of the familiar.
Fascinated by how we live with objects, how and why we acquire objects and what happens to them throughout history, this work is a reflection of the life of surface pattern through the decorative art continuum.
