NJH is a Southern California based artist whose striking biomorphic ceramic sculptures interrogate themes of vulnerability and self-preservation, and the tension between beauty and brutality therewithin. Each of NJH’s evocative sculptures is painstakingly hand constructed. The artist first builds the body by rolling out and layering thick coils of clay to which he adheres “thorns” that were shaped individually by pinching, carving, or press moulding. The distinguishing feature of NJH’s works are the sharp organic protuberances that appear to defiantly unfurl from and enclose the body of the vessel; born out of the artists’ personal struggles and trauma, these “thorns,” as NJH describes them, viscerally bring to form the grace and violence required to protect oneself from a hostile world.