Valerie Zimany is Chair of the Department of Art at Clemson University. After completing her MFA at Kanazawa College of Art as a Fulbright Fellow and Japanese Government Scholar, Valerie spent three years in residency at the Utatsuyama Craft Workshop researching contemporary Japanese crafts and Kutani overglaze. She was honored with a Fulbright-Hays grant through the U.S. Department of Education for her proposal Porcelain Fever: Contemporary Kutani Practitioners and Processes and returned to Kanazawa College of Art's Institute of Art & Design as a guest researcher. Research interests include contemporary Japanese art, the confluence of cultures in export wares of the 18th & 19th centuries, and most recently utilizing digital manufacturing tools to explore dense and delicate historic enamelware patterns and the artisan virtuosity required in their creation.
Zimany exhibits both nationally and internationally, and her work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions in venues such as the 9th International Ceramic Competition Mino, the 5th World Ceramic Biennale Korea, the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA, the Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA, the 701cca Center for Contemporary Art, Columbia, SC, and more. Her works are in multiple public and private collections including the Taipei Yingge Ceramic Museum, Taiwan; the American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA; the World Ceramic Museum at Icheon, Korea; and the Slovenia National Museum in Metelkova, Slovenia. Valerie was named an American Craft Council Searchlight Artist for 2007, a Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist for 2008, a Finalist for the Niche Award in 2011, a Finalist for the Society for Contemporary Craft’s Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize in 2013, the Award of Excellence at the Cluji International Ceramics Biennale in Romania and the Grand Prize at Medalta International Artists-in-Residence in Canada both in 2015, the Antinori Distinguished Fellowship at Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences in 2018, and was named to the Artist Fellowship in Craft from the SC State Arts Commission in 2020. Besides exhibiting, Valerie’s work can be seen in the Lark Books 500 Ceramic Sculptures and 500 Prints on Clay, and is the subject of “Valerie Zimany: Recasting The Japanese Tradition,” a full feature article in the November 2008 issue of Ceramics Monthly.
Also acting as an independent curator, Valerie has organized concurrent exhibitions for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts including: Method: Multiple and Episodic, Clustered, and Migrating (NCECA 2011), To Wander Out of Place: Artists and Asia (NCECA 2012), and Valerie Zimany: Porcelain Fever (NCECA 2013). Internationally, she directed the exhibition Porcelain Fever: Contemporary Artists and Kutani Now in cooperation with the non-profit art space ArtGummi, Kanazawa City Hall, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Japan. The exhibition was accompanied by a critical catalogue and subsequently featured as a lecture in the programming for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Art’s 2014 conference held in Milwaukee, WI. Her most recent curatorial project is Dirt x Digital: A Southern Survey in Clay, which features artists utilizing digital manufacturing processes in their work and teaching.
Zimany exhibits both nationally and internationally, and her work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions in venues such as the 9th International Ceramic Competition Mino, the 5th World Ceramic Biennale Korea, the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA, the Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA, the 701cca Center for Contemporary Art, Columbia, SC, and more. Her works are in multiple public and private collections including the Taipei Yingge Ceramic Museum, Taiwan; the American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA; the World Ceramic Museum at Icheon, Korea; and the Slovenia National Museum in Metelkova, Slovenia. Valerie was named an American Craft Council Searchlight Artist for 2007, a Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist for 2008, a Finalist for the Niche Award in 2011, a Finalist for the Society for Contemporary Craft’s Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize in 2013, the Award of Excellence at the Cluji International Ceramics Biennale in Romania and the Grand Prize at Medalta International Artists-in-Residence in Canada both in 2015, the Antinori Distinguished Fellowship at Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences in 2018, and was named to the Artist Fellowship in Craft from the SC State Arts Commission in 2020. Besides exhibiting, Valerie’s work can be seen in the Lark Books 500 Ceramic Sculptures and 500 Prints on Clay, and is the subject of “Valerie Zimany: Recasting The Japanese Tradition,” a full feature article in the November 2008 issue of Ceramics Monthly.
Also acting as an independent curator, Valerie has organized concurrent exhibitions for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts including: Method: Multiple and Episodic, Clustered, and Migrating (NCECA 2011), To Wander Out of Place: Artists and Asia (NCECA 2012), and Valerie Zimany: Porcelain Fever (NCECA 2013). Internationally, she directed the exhibition Porcelain Fever: Contemporary Artists and Kutani Now in cooperation with the non-profit art space ArtGummi, Kanazawa City Hall, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Japan. The exhibition was accompanied by a critical catalogue and subsequently featured as a lecture in the programming for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Art’s 2014 conference held in Milwaukee, WI. Her most recent curatorial project is Dirt x Digital: A Southern Survey in Clay, which features artists utilizing digital manufacturing processes in their work and teaching.