The work featured in this show has been created in the time since lockdown first began, as I moved between a home ceramics studio and my regular working space, which is located in an industrial neighborhood of former shipbuilding warehouses. The chain forms emerged as both a response to the remnants of WWII shipbuilding surrounding my studio– aging nautical chains and ropes – and a metaphor for our new predicament. Each chain link is physically connected and depends on the next chain for its integrity. The links are all hand formed and therefore unique, and they exist in a larger cohesive community. The pandemic laid bare the importance of our connections to one another, so the daily rhythmic act of working from home, making these chain families and connecting an interdependent whole, provided solace and meaning in an otherwise bewildering time.
As lockdown eased and work in the painting studio resumed, the new works on paper began to explore the intersection between the natural and built environment surrounding my studio. Due to months of neglect and a general quieting of the world, rogue plant life emerged in every corner of the landscape, creating a striking juxtaposition between the heavily industrial architecture and the delicate but tenacious vines and flowers that encroached upon the structures. The resulting work seesaws between these two polarities, the industrial and the nature based, and coalesces in an abundance of color, which my practice demanded after months of being home.
Trained as a sculptor, the works on paper often begin with gouache on hand formed Japanese paper but morph into three dimensional objects with the addition of porcelain. A particular focus of the work has been material exploration, and the questioning and subverting of our preconceived notions of certain materials: clay is made tiny and delicate, leather is cut, perforated and sewn to paper, and thread unites the whole in a near invisible securing and bonding of materials. As always, my art practice seeks to help me process my surroundings, respond to what I find bewildering and awe inspiring in nature, and understand the imprint we make.