Jill Trappler is a ceramicist whose practice engages deeply with the expressive possibilities of clay — its tactile surfaces, its memory of touch, and its capacity to hold form and meaning simultaneously. Her ceramic sculptures explore questions of texture, materiality, and the relationship between vessel and body, tradition and innovation. As the 2025 Ampersand Fellow, Trappler brings her work into dialogue with New York's vibrant ceramic and craft arts community, engaging with artists and institutions at the forefront of the global resurgence of interest in ceramics as a serious contemporary medium.
The Ampersand Fellowship
Since 1997, the Ampersand Foundation has sent more than 300 South African visual artists to a funded residency in Tribeca, New York — connecting them with one of the world's most dynamic art ecosystems.