BFA, Studio Art
Dual Discipline Focus
Primary Focus: Sculpture
Secondary Focus: Jewelry & Metalsmithing
Artist Statement
Vestiges
One of humankind’s earliest inventions, the vessel has evolved alongside us, with traceable successions of design and function not dissimilar to the genealogy of a living species. This body of work, entitled Vestiges, envisions future lineages of such carriers – both as utilitarian objects and reflections upon the concept of gender. The vessel forms allow the work to reflect on the social role of shelter, storage, and nourishment, while the ephemeral quality of the materials brings to the fore the question of how such roles transform and evolve throughout history and culture. Sculptural vessels depict function rendered vestigial, freed from the imposition of utility. These distill three main modes utilization for a vessel; the ability to provide a protective barrier to what is within, to play a role in transformation, or to act as a conduit for transportation. Wearables, with forms derived from physical traits, are similarly divorced from their origin, allowing for the viewer to envision donning or removing them. These attributes become neutral, once disentangled from the gestalt, inviting interpretations of oneself to be removed, mixed and recombined, ultimately determined by the beholder. Wire and paper fossils, depicting forms of various degrees of functionality, allude to gendered customs that have been abandoned with time. The materials are chosen for the regenerative aspects of their origins. Silk is harvested from cocoons, from which the moths emerge to create future generations. Kombucha continually creates a biofilm of bacteria and yeast, inducing the process of fermentation. Paper and chitosan are products of naturally growing sources; plant matter, fungus, and arthropod shells. Silver, likewise, occurs naturally; its categorization as an element alludes to a geologic time scale, emphasizing the temporary quality of the other materials through contrast. When abandoned, these objects will decompose and may eventually return to their previous material states. Likewise, our definitions of gender are similarly fleeting, projecting an ever-changing visage upon a species in flux.
