Washington-based artist Beth Cavener Stichter sculpts these beautiful ceramic animals.
"There are primitive animal instincts lurking in our own depths, waiting for the chance to slide past a conscious moment. The sculptures I create focus on human psychology, stripped of context and rationalization, and articulated through animal and human forms. On the surface, these figures are simply feral and domestic individuals suspended in a moment of tension. Beneath the surface they embody the impacts of aggression, territorial desires, isolation, and pack mentality.
"Both human and animal interactions show patterns of intricate, subliminal gestures that betray intent and motivation. The things we leave unsaid are far more important than the words we speak out-loud to one another. I have learned to read meaning in the subtler signs; a look, the way one holds one's hands, the tightening of muscles in the shoulders, the incline of the head, the rhythm of a walk, and the slightest unconscious gestures. I rely on animal body language in my work as a metaphor for these underlying patterns, transforming the animal subjects into human psychological portraits."
"I want to pry at those uncomfortable, awkward edges between animal and human. The figures are feral and uneasy, expressing frustration for the human tendency towards cruelty and lack of understanding. Entangled in their own internal and external struggles, the figures are engaged with the subjects of fear, apathy, violence and powerlessness. Something conscious and knowing is captured in their gestures and expressions. An invitation and a rebuke."
"My initial inspiration comes from taking a close look at the people around me, and imagining how their inner hidden conflicts and desires might appear if they were suddenly manifested in physical form."
"Working solid with hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds of clay on a metal armature is an intensely physical process. I often think of these first 3- 5 days of sculpting as a representation of the masculine and raw side of creating- often using my entire body and a chunk of rough wood to move the material around. After the initial stages of handling the material, I will spend the next 2 months carefully dissecting the solid clay from the armature, section by section, and hollowing each piece down to 1/4 inch thickness before reassembling the whole to be fired. Each of those gestural marks on the surface is carefully mirrored on the inside leaving the whole sculpture as a thin fragile skin shed of its interior mass. This second stage of the process has a strangely feminine association for me, as it requires a delicacy of touch and hundreds of hours refining the smallest details and pushing at the clay skin of the animal from the inside, swelling the muscles and folds to create a sense of vitality and tenderness."
Check her website: www.followtheblackrabbit.com/
Source: gblog
"There are primitive animal instincts lurking in our own depths, waiting for the chance to slide past a conscious moment. The sculptures I create focus on human psychology, stripped of context and rationalization, and articulated through animal and human forms. On the surface, these figures are simply feral and domestic individuals suspended in a moment of tension. Beneath the surface they embody the impacts of aggression, territorial desires, isolation, and pack mentality.
"Both human and animal interactions show patterns of intricate, subliminal gestures that betray intent and motivation. The things we leave unsaid are far more important than the words we speak out-loud to one another. I have learned to read meaning in the subtler signs; a look, the way one holds one's hands, the tightening of muscles in the shoulders, the incline of the head, the rhythm of a walk, and the slightest unconscious gestures. I rely on animal body language in my work as a metaphor for these underlying patterns, transforming the animal subjects into human psychological portraits."
"I want to pry at those uncomfortable, awkward edges between animal and human. The figures are feral and uneasy, expressing frustration for the human tendency towards cruelty and lack of understanding. Entangled in their own internal and external struggles, the figures are engaged with the subjects of fear, apathy, violence and powerlessness. Something conscious and knowing is captured in their gestures and expressions. An invitation and a rebuke."
"My initial inspiration comes from taking a close look at the people around me, and imagining how their inner hidden conflicts and desires might appear if they were suddenly manifested in physical form."
"Working solid with hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds of clay on a metal armature is an intensely physical process. I often think of these first 3- 5 days of sculpting as a representation of the masculine and raw side of creating- often using my entire body and a chunk of rough wood to move the material around. After the initial stages of handling the material, I will spend the next 2 months carefully dissecting the solid clay from the armature, section by section, and hollowing each piece down to 1/4 inch thickness before reassembling the whole to be fired. Each of those gestural marks on the surface is carefully mirrored on the inside leaving the whole sculpture as a thin fragile skin shed of its interior mass. This second stage of the process has a strangely feminine association for me, as it requires a delicacy of touch and hundreds of hours refining the smallest details and pushing at the clay skin of the animal from the inside, swelling the muscles and folds to create a sense of vitality and tenderness."
Check her website: www.followtheblackrabbit.com/
Source: gblog
0 comments:
Post a Comment