This is Not a Toaster
Nazarian / Curcio is pleased to present This is Not a Toaster, a group exhibition featuring artists and designers who cleverly embed systems of utility—whether implied or explicit—within sculptural forms. Together, these works challenge and reimagine conventional expectations of what objects can or should do.
The exhibition’s title nods to René Magritte’s iconic 1929 painting The Treachery of Images, in which the phrase “This is not a pipe” appears below a meticulously rendered image of a pipe. In a similarly playful, irreverent, and surrealist spirit, This is Not a Toaster explores the shifting boundaries between function and form. The objects on view blur distinctions between fine art and design, inviting viewers to reconsider the roles, meanings, and potential uses of the things we live with.
This exhibition features new and recent works by Carmen D’Apollonio, Woody De Othello, Vincent Posick, Brian Rochefort, Isabel Rower, Davina Semo, Katie Stout, David Wiseman, and Tori Wranes.
Carmen D’Apollonio (b. 1973, Zurich, Switzerland; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) creates ceramic sculptures that blur the boundaries between art, design, and craft. Working primarily with clay, her hand-built lamps and vessels oscillate between abstraction and figuration, often animated by gestural forms and a playful sensibility. Her intuitive, tactile approach emphasizes spontaneity and material presence, yielding works that are both expressive and functional. Drawing on a multidisciplinary background in film, fashion, and art direction, her practice merges conceptual clarity with physical immediacy.
Her work has been exhibited at Friedman Benda, New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA; Massimo De Carlo, Milan, Italy; The Breeder, Athens, Greece; Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, CA; The Hole, New York, NY; and in curated presentations at Design Miami.
Woody De Othello (b. 1991, Miami, FL; lives and works in Oakland, CA) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sculpture, painting, and drawing. Best known for his glazed ceramics and bronze works, Othello animates domestic objects to challenge and expand the still life tradition. Drawing from diasporic spiritual and cultural histories—including the nkisi of Central Africa and the Indigenous Dagara cosmology of sub-Saharan Africa—his work engages clay as a material of ancestral memory and transformation, emphasizing its regenerative and symbolic power.
Othello holds a BFA from Florida Atlantic University and an MFA from California College of the Arts, San Francisco. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL; ICA, Miami, FL; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Seattle Art Museum, WA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; San José Museum of Art, CA; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; and MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Art, Rome, Italy, among others. Othello has exhibited widely, with group shows at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; Hayward Gallery, London, UK; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others. His large-scale public commissions include installations at San Francisco International Airport; the de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; and Cityline, Sunnyvale, CA.
Vincent Pocsik (b. 1985, Cleveland, OH; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) creates sculptural works that blur the boundaries between functional design and fine art. Working primarily with walnut and oak, he combines traditional hand-carving techniques with digital fabrication to explore themes of corporeality, memory, and material transformation. His hybrid compositions often reference the human figure, merging industrial artifacts with natural forms to evoke a surreal and anthropomorphic sensibility. Drawing from a multidisciplinary background in architecture, his practice integrates conceptual rigor with a deep sensitivity to craft and form.
Pocsik received an MA in Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, and a BS from Bowling Green State University, OH. His work has been exhibited at Nazarian / Curcio, Los Angeles, CA; Shrine Gallery, New York, NY; Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Objective Gallery, New York, NY and Shanghai, China; and Twentieth Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA. Group exhibitions include R & Company, New York, NY; Object Gallery, St. Moritz, Switzerland; and the Marfa Invitational at Room 57 Gallery, Marfa, TX.
Brian Rochefort (b. 1985, Providence, RI; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) creates mixed-media ceramic sculptures that merge material experimentation with ecological reflection. Working primarily with ceramic, glaze, and melted glass, he produces highly textured forms that evoke the raw beauty of volcanic landscapes, marine ecosystems, and other remote natural environments. His layered surfaces and vibrant interiors reference his travels to remote locations such as the Amazon Rainforest in Bolivia and Peru, the Galápagos Islands, and East Africa, resulting in works that feel both organic and alien.By combining techniques of accumulation and erosion, his practice challenges the boundaries of traditional ceramics while maintaining a deep connection to place and process.
Rochefort received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monte Carlo, Monaco; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Boca Raton Museum of Art, FL; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Sean Kelly Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Massimo De Carlo, Hong Kong, China; Bernier Eliades Gallery, Greece; and The Mistake Room, Los Angeles, CA. He will be a participating artist in Made in L.A. 2025.
Isabel Rower (b. 1998, New York, NY; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) creates sculptural objects that merge furniture design with expressive form. Working primarily with clay, her practice reinterprets everyday objects—such as chairs, vessels, and dishware—through a lens that blurs the boundary between function and ornament. Influenced by natural elements and domestic environments, her work explores material transformation and spatial intimacy, often challenging conventional notions of use and beauty.
Rower received a BFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been exhibited at Fairfax Dorn Projects, Marfa, TX; Alcova Milano, Milan, Italy; Galerie Sardine, Paris, France; and Marta Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Dezeen, Dwell 24, Wallpaper 400, and Architectural Digest. Recent highlights include an acquisition by SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA and a pop-up presentation at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA.
Davina Semo (b. 1981, Washington, DC; lives and works in San Francisco, CA) creates sculptures that explore the interplay between material, sound, and public engagement. Working primarily with cast bronze, her bells, mirrors, and reliefs blur the line between function and abstraction, often inviting physical interaction through reflection or sound. Her practice channels the visual and emotional weight of industrial materials, transforming them into meditative forms that evoke presence, ritual, and psychological tension. Texture, surface, and resonance serve as central elements in her sculptural vocabulary, offering layered experiences rooted in both the tactile and the poetic.
Semo has a BA in Visual Arts and Creative Writing from Brown University and an MFA from University of California, San Diego. Semo has been awarded many public commissions, including “Reverberation” at Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 1, New York, organized by Public Art Fund (2021), and in 2025, an installation of three large bells at Powder Mountain, the outdoor art park founded by Reed Hastings, Netflix co-founder, in Eden, Utah. Semo is the subject of a solo exhibition at SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA, opening in August 2025. She has previously enjoyed a solo at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, and numerous group exhibitions at MCA Denver, CO; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco; Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; SOMArts, San Francisco; White Columns, New York; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. Her work is included in collections at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, MA; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC; and the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, Claremont, CA. Semo lives and works in San Francisco. She is represented by Jessica Silverman, San Francisco.
Katie Stout (b. 1989, Portland, ME; lives and works in Hudson, NY) creates sculptural works that merge furniture, craft, and feminist critique into a playful and provocative visual language. Working across ceramic, textile, glass, and bronze, she reinterprets historical decorative forms through techniques such as hand-building, weaving, and casting. Her work explores domestic aesthetics with irreverence and humor, often blurring the line between art and function while challenging traditional ideas of beauty, gender, and taste.
Stout received a BFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been exhibited at Nina Johnson Gallery, Miami, FL; Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; R & Company, New York, NY; and Design Miami. Group exhibitions include the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY. Her work is held in museum and private collections worldwide, including the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY. Stout is represented by Nina Johnson Gallery in Miami and R & Company in New York.
David Wiseman (b. 1981, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) creates sculptural works that merge design, craft, and ornament with a reverence for nature and historical decorative traditions. Working across materials such as bronze, porcelain, marble, and terrazzo, his practice reimagines classical motifs through contemporary forms, emphasizing permanence, beauty, and intricate detail. Drawing inspiration from flora, fauna, and geological textures, his work transforms interior spaces into immersive environments, bridging the functional and the fantastical.
Wiseman studied at the Rhode Island School of Design. His work has been commissioned by cultural institutions, private collectors, and international brands, and is included in the permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; and the RISD Museum, Providence, RI.
Tori Wrånes (b. 1978, Kristiansand, Norway; lives and works in Oslo, Norway) creates immersive performances and sculptural environments that merge sound, movement, costuming, and large-scale installation. Drawing on Nordic folklore, queer identity, and environmental themes, her practice unfolds through fantastical narratives where abstracted figures and prosthetic forms inhabit dreamlike worlds. Her synesthetic approach allows her to sculpt with both voice and material, developing a distinct “troll language” to bypass linguistic convention and explore primal emotional states. Blurring the boundaries between disciplines, Wrånes’s works evoke ritual, mythology, and transformation, balancing spectacle with personal introspection.
Wrånes has presented solo exhibitions at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland; Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark; Carl Freedman Gallery, London, UK; and Kuirbog Festival, Bogotá, Colombia. Her performances have been featured in the 19th Biennale of Sydney, Australia; Performa 13, New York, NY; Colombo Art Biennale, Sri Lanka; Dhaka Art Seminars, Bangladesh; CCA Lagos, Nigeria; SculptureCenter, New York, NY; Thailand Biennale, Krabi, Thailand; and Lilith Performance Studio, Malmö, Sweden. Wrånes’s work is held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway; Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway; Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg, Sweden; and Ekebergparken Sculpture Park, Oslo, Norway, among others. Her work will be included in the upcoming Venice Biennale in 2026.