Sarah Davis Gallery

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Recent Work

Summary:

At the beginning of my MFA work, I was focused on picking up where I left off during my undergrad program - I was fascinated with the repetitive motion of coiling and the resulting meditative process, though I was searching for the meaning behind my work. Reflecting back, I have come to realize that the forms I create are often unplanned, abstract responses to my experiences in life. While my forms have often varied in their response, the concept behind them has continued to be strengthened during my time here: my focus is to create tangible objects that embody a sense of the emotion and feeling I have during my creative process, to work through a semi-meditative process in order to extricate myself from the emotional weight I bare and provide it with a physical identity.

I believe the majority of us bear some sort of emotional weight, whether it is joyful or sorrowful, anxious or excited, traumatic or liberating. Such emotions can be spurred by any number of events or experiences; my goal is to communicate specific life experiences to a larger audience so they may be able to connect with the work on a more personal, intimate level.

On the forms:

When taken as a whole in its entirety, the work I have produced during this last year-and-a-half seems to be somewhat visually disconnected. However, when taken individually, and especially in chronological order, one is able to discern how one work may have led to another, which in turn led to another and so on, so forth.

There has always been an emphasis on the relationship between texture and form in my work, partly due to my enjoyment of working with a material as tactually responsive as clay. I love digging my fingers into the clay, pushing and pulling it around, engaging in a give-and-take relationship with the body itself, pushing the clay to its limits and then having the control to either bring it back or take it past its breaking point. It is at this breaking point where I find the most excitement and joy. I am comfortable and confident with the material, possessing the patience to continue working with the clay until the work is satisfactory.

However, at this point I have become more focused on what I need the end result to reflect. Currently, I am working on a series that deals with the duality of being a mother-child. To explain: As I experience my daughter’s childhood, I am also re-experiencing portions of my own. This process continues to expose a multitude of latent memories, emotions and feelings that are often confusing and difficult to conceal again, therefore leading me to deal with them in more constructive ways. One of the ways I have found to deal with this emotional weight is through my creative process.

On my creative process:

When I am in the studio, working on a new piece, I have my music looped to continually play the same song as I begin to focus on a particular memory – often, a recollection of a specific experience, relationship or feeling that I have not yet come to terms with, regardless of whether it is joyful, sorrowful or fearful.

Once all external factors are blocked out and I am able to focus on this instance, I begin working in an almost semi-conscious state: grabbing handfuls of moist clay, pushing it down onto the board and smearing it around, all the while focusing my mind on the memory my feelings are physically responding to through my hands. The construction of the work is moderately paced and deliberate, with the mind, eyes and fingers all in sync, relying greatly on an intuitive response that is born of years of formal artistic training and past experience with the material and tools. The primary concern of my hands at this phase is always on the form, while my mind is focused more on allowing the emotional energy to flow through me and into the work, using the eyes as a visual guide to maintain the visual quality of the form.

On the use of text:

I have always been interested in the use of text on forms – primarily as a method of providing texture that is recognizable yet allusive all at once. While the text used in the current Mother-Child series works well for providing visual texture, its symbolism is much more powerful for me. The inscriptions draw reference to the cuneiform tablets from ancient times, though the words embedded within the surface of my work are oftentimes illegible to the general viewer. This evasiveness is directly intentional, the result of a physical recording of a particular recollection that I wish to be liberated of and no longer controlled by. This record of memory is then worn off and then partially re-exposed so that it is always physically present within the piece, though no longer something to be dwelled upon.

Certainly, this process is highly therapeutic for me and carries with it a certain sense of self-empowerment and liberation, a process for the re-organization of mental chaos, so to speak.

On the thesis:

At this point, I envision my thesis work and research addressing the psychological aspect of art-making. Specifically, I plan to investigate the writings of Ellen Dissanayake and her thoughts on the bio-evolutionary theory of art, Rudolf Arnheim and his research on the psychology of art, and Carl Jung’s thoughts on what he considered the two levels of unconscious. My research references Expressionists, Abstract Expressionists, process-based artists and other artists who have been cited as working through their sub- or unconscious, such as Louise Bourgeois, Joan Mitchell, as well as any other pertinent historical references.

The body of work for my thesis consists of forms related to and stemming from my recent body of work, developed with the intention of providing a physical identity for the emotional weight carried within.