Axis Gallery is pleased to announce Ecdysis, an exhibition of new ceramic sculpture by Adero Willard, on view from October 31 through November 30, 2025.
The exhibition brings together a series of abstracted, coil-built ceramic heads layered with slips, resists, glazes, mixed media, and the presence of language. Each work becomes a vessel for surface, pattern, and embedded material, carrying the layered realities of Black, queer, and gender-fluid experience. Clay here operates as both metaphor and method—holding memory, healing, and transformation within every mark.
Emerging from moments of dialogue and exchange, the work reflects on how intimacy and relational presence can shape visual language. These sculptural portraits resist linear narrative, instead embracing unfolding as a process of care, trust, and connection.
The title Ecdysis refers to the shedding of an exoskeleton—an act of vulnerability and renewal. Willard draws from this biological metaphor to navigate shifting spaces of identity, ancestry, and materiality. The works move fluidly between personal and collective story, offering vessels of becoming where surfaces carry history and pattern holds the possibility of change.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Adero Willard is a ceramic artist, educator, and curator whose practice explores surface, identity, and cultural memory. They are Assistant Professor of Ceramics at California State University, Sacramento, and co-founder of Pots on Wheels!, a nonprofit bringing clay into community spaces. Willard organized the exhibition Clay Holds Water, Water Holds Memory and was a presenter for Women Working in Clay. Their work has been exhibited widely, and they have presented in conferences, symposiums, and panels, including NCECA: We’ve Been Here the Whole Time.
As both an educator and curator, Willard views equity as essential to the vitality of the field—ensuring that all voices have space within the classroom, the studio, and the canon. While their work uplifts the contributions of women, Black, POC, queer, and gender expansive artists within ceramics and contemporary art, they believe equity extends to everyone, shaping more inclusive institutional and cultural spaces.
Join us for the Second Saturday reception on November 8 from 5–8 PM at Axis Gallery, located at 625 S Street in Sacramento’s historic R Street Corridor.
Gallery hours are Friday–Sunday, 12–5 PM. For more information, visit axisgallery.org.