Ceramicist Kate MacDowell has achieved something new and interesting using concepts and materials old and common. Working primarily with porcelain, she carves out human structures - generally body parts - morphed and combined with nonhuman organisms to create some really interesting stuff. The central concept driving her work, according to her artist's statement, has to do with humanity's influence and role in the natural world. She focuses the negative effects of current technology and society. Humanity and nature are portrayed as one in her work, but she makes the union purposefully "uncomfortable" in an effort to communicate her feelings about the dangers of human-imposed change on the environment.
The figures and organisms portrayed are often dead, in some stage of dilapidation, showing the association between humanity's interaction with nature and death/pain.
MacDowell communicates a common concept in a skillful and innovative way. She certainly achieves the morbid discomfort she strives to communicate and does so in a strangely tasteful way. The porcelain, clean and sterile, brings a sort of quiet, fossilized pain to her pieces that really stood out to me. Definitely a cool find and something to learn from for senior sem.
No comments:
Post a Comment