Zae Karee is a Utah based Ceramic Artist who specializes in airbrushed, slip cast forms. Her work explores playful themes that utilize large scale objects and installations to engage the viewer. She has shown her work locally and nationally.

Zae received her BFA from Utah State University in Logan, UT. Since graduating, Zae has worked to create accessibility in Utah’s ceramic community; she developed and managed the ceramic program at Workshop SLC and assisted with the opening of Studio 1396. Zae proposed and managed both studios' participation in the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) 2025 Clay Around Town exhibition series. She was able to share her knowledge of local artists and history by volunteering as a Bus Tour Guide during NCECA. She actively builds community through Empty Bowls throw-a-thon, local educational classes, and engaging in visiting artist workshops by nationally known artists.

She currently works as an educator at Juan Diego Catholic High School teaching and rebuilding the ceramics program. She also works part time as the Operations Assistant for Sunstone, the local ceramics material distributor. She assists Sunstone with rebranding and retail customer experience, supporting both students and artists within Utah’s ceramic community. 

What is Feminine? What is Masculine? My interest lies in exploring these questions through shape, color, and texture. My work plays with the edge of form and function and engages the viewer to ask: “Is this a vessel or a sculpture?” Can it be both?

Using precise geometry I have created my own artist “Legos”. By making custom molds I can produce different sizes of cones, spheres, tubes and slabs that can all be fitted together, like building blocks. Each form can be scaled infinitely larger or smaller, stretched up or down and will join together easily because all parts have a matching connection point. This allows each “lego piece” to be fitted together in any way creating continuous connection and adding diversity in each piece. Re-arranging “legos” leads to ‘what if’ questions of pushing the exploration of objects like spheres and hourglass shapes and playing with the ‘non-functional’ or sculptural space of each piece.

Dressing my forms in what I call Spikes and Flowers, similarly to the “legos”, has infinite possibilities. 2D Spikes and Flowers can expand into 3D and even 4D space. A single 3D spike is simplistic but when multiplied, produces infinitely larger or smaller installations. Moving into a 4D space, spikes are attached together into diamonds that are hung in any multiple or pattern, creating an ever-changing interactive experience.

Through these playful forms, colors and textures I began to explore concepts of Feminine and Masculine aesthetics. In my earlier work you can find flower elements with warm colors and in contrast, cool tones on my spike elements. Pointy shapes and darker colors feel more Masculine to me, while viewers have shared that color and shape combination resonates with their Feminine and vice versa. This inspired me to re-arrange colors by putting what I assumed were more feminine colors on masculine shapes, leading the viewer to question: are the pieces balanced in their Feminine and Masculine, or do they fully sway one way to the other.

My work questions identity: what role does the Feminine and the Masculine play in the rules of art? How does the psychology of color, shape, and space change as the world and its cultures move forward? How will these changes affect each viewer's perception of the Masculine, the Feminine, form and function as they interact with old and new artwork. By breaking these perceived rules I hope to raise questions about identity, balance in oneself and our relationships with each other. The work will evolve as I evolve and so to challenge viewers' perceptions.