The Boston Globe

"In clay, small forms and networks"

By Cate McQuaid - GLOBE CORRESPONDENT, JUNE 23, 2015

"Each of Nathan Prouty’s works at Lacoste Gallery centers around a small clay form that stands bravely upon, or recedes shyly into, a sparkling stage covered with glitter and resin.

He titles each work after a song from Joni Mitchell’s brilliant, brooding 1976 album, “Hejira.” “Coyote (Gumbell)” refers to a song about an affair with a man from another world. It features two coiled strands of gray standing like a skewed birthday candle on a green-tinged, seriously slumping cylinder. It all happens against a gaudy backdrop of glittering purple.

Perhaps the gray coil and the green cylinder are mismatched lovers. It doesn’t really matter; Prouty’s audacious stages launch his tiny, blushing ceramic pieces into mythic territory. It’s vulnerability in the spotlight, naked and endearing."