Benjie Heu tells a story through ceramics at the Crisp Museum in Cape Girardeau

On display at the Crisp Museum is "Benjie Heu: Transition Spaces 14.3," a collection of ceramic plates and pinch pots of different sizes arranged in a circle.

At first it's a bit cryptic, definitely not a work that can be taken in all at once. The eye is drawn first to the larger plates, taking in the bold line drawings and different textures before moving on to the smaller plates between. By the time the eye settles on the smallest pieces, most of which are textured abstractions, it's almost like seeing a deck of cards splayed purposefully on a table. There are patterns, textures and other common elements, but no established start or end or map outside the viewer's existing knowledge of, say, poker or euchre.

Heu, a ceramics professor at Southeast Missouri State University, said although he draws inspiration from graphic novels, it's not meant to be as clear-cut as that.

He likens the piece as a whole to a color-blind test, where each viewer's experience is as influenced by their own personal history as they are by the stimuli.

It's a collage of flashbulb imagery; a not-so-linear storyline from the mind of a self-ascribed Tarantino fan that percolates a while before congealing into a viewer-specific narrative.

"That could be a fault on my part depending on how you look at it," he said. "But I'm happy that the viewer brings something to the experience as well."

Another feature borrowed from the world of graphic novels is Heu's use of the space between the plates and pinch pots.

"The empty space between them acts like the gutter space in a comic book for the viewer," he said. "It gives them an opportunity to digest what they're seeing before moving on to the next one."

Since the ceramics are circular, each one seems to stand more on its own, challenging the viewer to connect the dots.

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"Each plate to me is kind of like a panel in a comic book," he said. "But there's also a historic tradition when you're dealing with ceramics. All the old Minoan pottery has pictures of seafarers or octopi; the Greeks had those beautiful black-slip figures. Ceramics have always been used for people to tell stories."

Using simple but richly textured forms, Heu transforms eminently relatable and often-overlooked anxieties of modern-era everyday life -- the frailty of our bodies, the specter of chemical dependency, religious uncertainty, etc. -- into Homeric monsters to be faced.

"In all the great legends and stories, there's always a section that they call the belly of the beast," he explained. "The belly of the beast is really life."

The display will be open through Jan. 25 at Southeast's River Campus. Admission is free to the public. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and from 1 to 4 p.m. on weekends. The museum will be closed for the holiday break and energy conservation days Wednesday through Jan. 6. For more information, call 651-2260 or email museum@semo.edu.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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518 S. Fountain St., Cape Girardeau, MO