Jerome Dubas
"Curiosity and the Four Healings"
Ceramic Sculptures
Artist Reception: Saturday, June 14, 2025 2:00 - 4:00 pm
On Display: June 3 - July 31, 2025
This show is available during business hours (Tuesday – Friday from 10 am – 5 pm) or on weekends by advance appointment only.
“I have always been drawn to figurative work. Using figures when making art allows me to show the effects of social and political issues on contemporary living. A sense of anxiety and uncertainty exists in the dynamics of each piece. Relationships, the current political climate, gender roles and issues, our environment: these themes in my work reflect on the precarious nature of modern living. Growing up on a farm with exposed earthenware clay in the pasture, clay has always been second nature to me as my expressive medium of choice.”- Jerome Dubas
ABOUT “CURIOSITY AND THE FOUR HEALINGS":
The ceramic busts in this exhibition reflect on aspects of modern living that are most in need of healing. The figures represented, attempt to be work of consequence and significance. Gold luster, stoneware, and porcelain slip are used in creating the work. Porcelain is the purest and most refined of clay bodies and is used as the healing agent in each piece. The gold luster represents what needs to be healed. The first bust entitled 45 is about healing politics, division, and the wealth gap in this country. A subtle use of symbols such as a toga, a split composition, and facial expression help give meaning to the piece. The second, Pope Joel LVIIMIL, addresses the healing of spirituality and the role of organized religion. A universally recognized symbol is the Pope’s Mitre. It is placed on the head of prosperity theology televangelist Joel Osteen. My daughter, mother and gardener, poses as Gaia in the third Healing. She is crowned with wilted lilies, referring to climate change and our environment. The last bust is a self-portrait. It deals with the need in these difficult times for self-healing. One fifth of the sculpture is in gold, using the power of perfect fifths to achieve harmony.
Dubas is the instructor of Ceramics, Art History, and the senior capstone class at Hastings College. He resides in Hastings, Nebraska. Dubas was originally from Fullerton, NE. He has taught for 42 years, beginning his career at Sandy Creek Jr/Sr High School. He also taught in the Grand Island Public Schools at Walnut Middle School and Grand Island Senior High. Dubas has taught ceramics at Hastings College since 1996. He has won numerous teaching awards including the Governor’s Arts Award in Teaching, the Kim Dinsdale Award for Excellence in Teaching, The Moonshell Outstanding Art Educator Award, Grand Island Public Schools Middle School Teacher of the Year, and The Nebraska Middle School Art Teacher of the Year. He has shown his work throughout the Midwest, most recently in the juried Nebraska Biennial Exhibition and the North Hills Pottery Tour. Dubas received a BA from Hastings College and a MAED from the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
