Artist Statement

 

            From childhood, I have always been interested in the world around me. I began my college career studying biology and have merged into focusing on art and psychology. These interests sparked my fascination with forms that evolve and have evolved and the skills that have developed in order for creatures to survive and thrive. I am interested in the inner workings of these organisms, on their adaptations to inhospitable environments, reliance on community, and their mechanisms for protection. The symbiotic and parasitic relationships creatures have with each other, as well as their adaptations, parallels between the psychological make-up and behaviors of humans. My ceramic sculptures are a mixture of biological life forms and fantasy. They reference the microscopic and also larger terrestrial and aquatic creatures. I use texture and color to show decay and life in my forms and I create my forms in multiples to reflect community and change, which reflect a need for many parts to make a coherent whole.

            Artistically, clay allows me to express these ideas and it allows me to have a close relationship with a material that is natural and innate. My ability to reflect my adolescent pursuits comes forward in my current work. Instead of depicting concrete life forms that I have studied, I prefer to integrate my intuitive understandings of them with fantasy. All of life is this ongoing narrative of different pieces interacting in some way or another with each other and the sculptures I create harvest those innate curiosities about the world around us.