Better Lovers – Urschrei

“Urschrei” is a new exhibition featuring works by Better Lovers, the moniker for the evolving artistic practice of Layla Marcelle and Jacob Raeder. The duo launched Better Lovers in 2016 ass a design company that applies contemporary dance methodologies to object-making. “Urschrei” will be on display in the Jill Bonovitz Gallery from October 13 to December 31, 2022.

Marcelle is an American artist who engages with multiple artistic mediums, including ceramics, choreography, image-making, and object-making. Her education includes professional contemporary dance training with Modus Operandi, a BA and BFA from Alfred University, an MFA from Simon Fraser University, and a master’s in ceramics from Tyler School of Art. Raeder learned the discipline of craft while double-majoring at Alfred University in Art and Philosophy. He traced the trajectories of contemporary European designs as a Fulbright scholar in the Netherlands before earning his MFA in ceramics at the School of Art Institute Chicago. Raeder has exhibited, taught, and participated in artist residencies all over the world, sharing the view of an expanded field of ceramics that encompasses the 21st-century conception of a materially engaged maker not beholden to a single medium.