matthew skelly

Matthew Skelly is a visual artist originally from California. His practice is centered around hand-built functional and sculptural ceramic objects adorned with decorative illustrative surfaces.

His work has been featured in exhibitions across the United States and internationally, including the International Ceramics Competition in Mino, Japan and the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale in New Taipei City, Taiwan, both in 2024.

He has received various honors, including the Innovator Award at the 33rd Annual Strictly Functional Pottery National, the Studio Potter Merit Award at the 2025 NCECA Juried Student Exhibition, and the Best in Show Prize at the 2026 Earth & Fire exhibition.

Matthew is currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

This work is an exploration of belief systems, technological progress, ritual and apophenia (or the tendency for humans to find false patterns in random noise). Other topics such as pilgrimage, cults, conspiracy theories, and propaganda also inform the work.

The objects are created via handbuilding techniques, primarily coils and slabs, and are decorated by applying underglaze directly to the clay surface after it has been bisque fired. They tend to be both figurative and functional, though typically their functionality only becomes clear when the figure is disassembled. The illustrations that adorn them are dense with information, but often the information is partially obscured or otherwise inaccessible.