Bellevue Arts Museum to Presents Tip Toland

Ceramic artist Tip Toland is returning to Bellevue Arts Museum for a new solo exhibition opening July 23. Tip Toland: Empathy in Clay presents a selection of both new and older works from Toland, highlighting her unique ability to capture vulnerable human moments in clay.

Arranged as a mini-retrospective, Empathy in Clay features 15 works from throughout Toland’s career. Four of Toland’s early two-dimensional surrealist bas reliefs will be on view, alongside two of her iconic full-figured freestanding clay sculptures. The exhibition will also include a frieze of eight new life-sized masks, based on a series of Toland’s own self-portraits.

Empathy in Clay will also include a screening of the Northwest Designer Craftsmen Living Treasures documentary of the same name, allowing visitors to hear Toland tell her own life story as well as commentary from her friends and mentors. Toland’s work previously appeared at BAM in her 2008 solo exhibition, Melt, the Figure in Clay, and in the group shows Making Our Mark: Art by Pratt Teaching Artists (2017) and BAM Biennial 2010: Clay Throwdown (2010).

Bellevue Arts Museum provides a public forum for the community to contemplate, appreciate, and discuss visual culture. We work with audiences, artists, makers, and designers to understand our shared experience of the world. bellevuearts.org.