Artist Sharif Bey knows what to do even when he isn’t sure what he’s doing. He goes to the studio and “stockpiles” material, making beads, bowls, teacups, anything to keep his hands moving and open his mind to possibility.

“It’s always a discovery; that’s what studio inquiry is,” he says. “It’s almost like jazz. You come up with a riff and then that becomes foundational.”

Bey’s improvisations result in boundary-breaking works that range from installations to jewelry. He’s exhibited nationally, internationally, and also locally at White Space Gallery.  As an artist who first trained as a potter, Bey is always thinking form, function, volume, and scale. But beyond his elegantly composed work, his deeper narrative concerns about power, value, and, most especially, identity, burst open those bounds of tradition.

Why not, for example, hang clay masks from a wall and make a ceramic quilt of sorts? That’s what Bey did when he created his work, Notions of Brazil. Strands of male faces stretch roughly three feet long and two feet wide; some men turn left, others right, all eyes are closed, and every toothy-mouth is wide open. The masks’ somber expressions are offset by bold colors and the rhythmic way they move as a group from top to bottom, left to right.

“I don’t know a thing about Brazil, but I have notions — images planted in my head of some old islander guy with his hat who apparently doesn’t have a dental plan,” he says with a laugh.

Lighthearted as that sounds, Bey, who lives in Winston-Salem and teaches art at Syracuse University in New York, becomes seriously passionate when describing his mixed-media piece. Asked to define how the word notion fits into the work’s title, the artist speaks at a rat-a-tat-tat pace.

“A notion is a kind of border between fact and assumption. It’s a thought, an idea, an impression, uninformed and misguided; it’s from within and without. It’s not something I’m responsible for. There’s a lack of accountability, and, in Brazil, it’s kind of playful.”

As eclectic as Bey’s work is, his inquiry into identity is omnipresent. In Brazil, identity is tied to conjecture, but in his other works, identity is based on the political, the historical, the personal. The questions of, “Who am I? Who are we?” continually produce new answers and, therefore, new art.

For example, when his wife, Asteir, became a lactation consultant, her new role influenced his work and his sense of identity. He created Asteir’s Biological Clock, a mixed-media piece that combines portraiture and sculpture in homage to the mother of their three children.

Inlaid in the wooden circular frame are 12 cowry shells, representing the lunar cycle, symbolizing fertility. Staring out from the darkness, beatific and still, is a portrait of Bey’s wife. She exudes a subtle radiance, surrounded by scattered rows of spring flowers, perched above the dangle of shimmering beads that honor the nursing mother.

“The cross references in my work are part of the process,” he says. “I read everything from Artforum to Mothering , and I never think of myself as the man I am. I think of the man I am becoming. As a creator, there’s something empowering and even spiritual about that.”

When did you realize you were going to live a creative life?
When I attended my first artist lecture when I was 15. I saw that people who made art and sold art made a living. I really didn’t know you could go to school to become an artist, so then I went to the Manchester Artist Guild located in Pittsburgh.

Where do you find your inspiration?
My teaching inspires me, and travel. I also really like to enter another community. I’d be happy to go to a Japanese pottery village. I’m not steadfast in any genre. I’m excited by the “what if.”

What do you do to overcome a creative block?
I do something monotonous. I’m just going to make heads, or draw smiley faces.

What do you think of failure?
If you’re reflective and resilient, it can only help — unless it costs a whole lot of money.

What quality do you admire in other artists?
Risk-taking, tenacity, audacity.

Which artists do you most admire?
Joe Donovan; Faith Ringgold; Martin Puryear; James Luna, a performance artist; Guillermo Gomez-Pena; Don Reitz.

What would surprise people about you?
I like romantic comedies. I’m a foodie. I’m an avid racquetball player, but I’m not good. And it’s sad to admit, but I never draw.