Langford acknowledged the influence of many in attendance, including her parents.

Artist Addie Langford made an appearance at the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art on Sunday, Nov. 24, to talk about the debut of her painted work, one of three solo galleries within “CONSTRUCTIONS,” which also includes work by Heloisa Pomfret and Nanette Carter.

She began her talk with an introduction of her background, including a multidisciplinary upbringing influenced by her parents, both of whom were on hand for the talk. From her earliest beginnings in textiles, drawing, fiber, and what she calls her “mother tongue” of watercolor, Langford eventually studied architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, which steeped her in the language of Modernism, which remains the root of her work.

In her fourth year at the Rhode Island School of Design, Langford called her parents from Rome, where she was doing an overseas residency, to break the news of her realization that she was a studio artist, not an architect. In support of this move away from her original trajectory, Langford’s mother enrolled her in a summer ceramics class at home in Kentucky with Estonian ceramicist Sergei Isupov, which opened the field for her next phase of development in investigating the clay body.

Detail from one of the works, revealing the different levels, or a quality Langford characterizes as “beneathness.”

Following the work she did for Isupov, Langford received a large architectural tile commission that enabled her, over the course of 2 years, to build out her own ceramics studio, where she spent time learning (or in her words, “blowing up tiles left and right”) and honing her skills for a move into ceramic sculpture. That work led to six years of teaching at community college in Kentucky, where Langford eventually came to feel that she had maxed out her ability to self-teach in ceramics. On the steam of her ceramics work, Langford came to Michigan’s Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she studied under Tony Hepburn, creating a paradigm shift in her view of process. She describes her awareness of the gift of time to focus solely on her work, saying she was “starving for that moment to lay down everything else and dissolve into the work.”

The works, at this point, are large-scale painted collage pieces that involve approximately 30 layers each, which build from found paper sources through an average of five gallons of acrylic color washes and sealant,  to create intense, moody fields of color and emotion. Indeed, it seems that Langford has created a stunning kind of abstract visual shorthand, with the textures, shapes and layers of each piece providing a highly relatable narrative for daily rhythms and the layered nature of identity.

Langford at the opening night reception, with one of her most intense pieces.

Langford spoke of her love for clay and its transformation from a malleable state to something hard and finished. Though the final shape she will take in the expression of her voice is perhaps still somewhat malleable, the story of Langford’s artistic journey reveals the beauty in the transition.

The N’Namdi will host a talk with another of the exhibit’s featured artists,  Heloisa Pomfret, speaking Sunday, Dec. 8 at 2 p.m. The work remains on display through Jan. 11, 2014.

Detail from a work by Heloisa Pomfret.

N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art: 52 E. Forest Ave, Detroit; 313.831.8700; http://nnamdicenter.org/ Addie Langford: http://addielangford.com/home.html