Gabrielle Wambaugh
Discontinuity
Traver Gallery is pleased to present Discontinuity, the first exhibition at the gallery by internationally renowned French sculptor Gabrielle Wambaugh. Working with ceramics for more than thirty-five years, Wambaugh has developed a practice that moves between sculpture, drawing, textiles, and mixed media.
In Discontinuity, forms appear to emerge, erode, and reassemble. Porous ceramic surfaces meet wire, fabric, thread, and other materials, creating works that feel at once fragile and resistant. Openings, loose edges, and partially concealed forms draw attention to shape, texture, repetition, and negative space. These details invite us to move closer and investigate what we are seeing. Rather than offering a fixed answer, the works leave us to form our own interpretations—or continue looking with new questions.
Many of the works in Discontinuity grew out of Wambaugh’s recent residency at Seattle University, supported by the Pigott Family Endowment for the Arts. During the residency, she continued her investigation of ceramics, drawing, embroidery, and mixed materials, creating the foundation for the work now presented at Traver Gallery.
A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Wambaugh lives and works in Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, Picardy, France. She received the Altadis Prize and has completed research residencies at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres and the European Ceramic Workcentre. Her work has been exhibited in museums and art institutions across Europe, the United States, and Asia, including the Capitoline Museums in Rome, the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, and the Musée National de Céramique de Sèvres.
Please join us as we welcome Gabrielle Wambaugh to Traver Gallery for her first exhibition with the gallery.
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About
Gabrielle Wambaugh - view profile
Gabrielle Wambaugh is a sculptor. Her work and artistic practice have been presented throughout Europe and internationally.
In 2002, she was awarded the Altadis Prize, accompanied by the publication of her first monograph by Actes Sud. In 2003, she received her first public commission, in the city of Daegu, South Korea. In 2005 and 2006, she was invited to undertake research residencies at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, Cité de la Céramique. In 2007–08, 2014, 2018, 2021 and 2023, she continued her research into stoneware and explored the notion of “fusions” at the European Ceramic Workcentre (EKWC), an international centre for ceramic research.
Awarded the Norma Lipman Research Fellowship, she spent several years in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, where her work was supported by a publication funded by the Arts Council of England. In 2024, she was awarded the Pigott Family Endowment Fellowship in the United States.
Gabrielle Wambaugh’s work has been exhibited in numerous museums, art centres and private galleries across Europe, the United States, South Korea and China, including Le Grand-Hornu in Belgium; the Capitoline Museums in Rome and the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy; and the Prince’s Palace of Monaco. She has also participated in Ceramix at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, the Musée National de Céramique de Sèvres, La Maison Rouge – Fondation Antoine de Galbert and at the FRAC Picardy.
Gabrielle creates sculptures through processes of suggestion, concealment and layering—works that are not immediately visible in their entirety and that invite multiple interpretations. She is interested in emphasizing the ambiguous nature of sculpture and explores notions of periphery, norms and representation.