Hooman Bayat

Hooman Bayat carves travertine — a stone full of natural pockets and voids — into vessel forms that are solid all the way through. The silhouette reads as a bowl, a jar, an urn; the reality is a closed mass with no interior to hold anything. He selects each stone block specifically for the pattern of its natural cavities, then carves around and into that pattern rather than smoothing it away, so the surface keeps a record of the stone's own geologic gaps even as the form insists on being sealed. Each piece takes him several weeks of hand-carving and polishing. His sculptures reach ATG through a screened export partner in Iran who has handled his studio's shipping and customs paperwork for years.

Hooman Bayat carves travertine into vessel shapes that could never hold anything — closed, solid forms that quote the idea of a container without ever becoming one.

Kashan, Iran

He's interested in the gap between what a shape promises to hold and what it actually can.