artist profile: Jocelyn Reid

by Carole Epp | Mar 10, 2013 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, show us your influences, technical tuesday

 

I just stumbled across the work of Jocelyn Reid on instagram and just had to share it with you all. Jocelyn is a fourth year ceramics major at ACAD.  Her Sandbox exhibition is up until the 15th so if you’re in the area please make the time to stop by and have a play.

Jocelyn writes; “Sandbox is an installation of ceramic sculptures that all feature
removable and interchangeable parts. Because of this, I am inviting all
viewers and spectators to interact, and essentially play with all of the
different works. By engaging this sense of touch and discovery, all
people have the option to transition to a very basic level of play while
in contact with the pieces in the Sandbox. In this way, each person can
become a kind of performer. The forms are inspired by references from
both manufactured and organic forms, and this parallel gives way to
other contradictory ideas – most prominently, adulthood vs. childhood,
and familiarity vs. foreignness. Most importantly, the Sandbox is a
place for exploration of the sculptures, and of each persons own self.”

ARTIST STATEMENT

In the ceramic sculptures I
create, I put organic matter and manufactured objects on equal footing
with one another. By mixing these two contradictory things, the line
between them is blurred. Everyday objects transform into something
foreign and living, just as the natural matter that I reference becomes
hard and substantial. By referencing these two components and mixing
them together, controlled becomes uncontrolled, and vice versa.

The
constant presence of manufactured objects in the natural world inspires
me and informs my sculptures. Nature has become the best and most
special of all fads – an excursion into the wilderness is never without a
sleek camera to document the experience. We keep plants in our houses
and offices, own cabins in the middle of secluded forests, and build
buildings in the image of bee hives and birds nests. The same thing that
inspires wonder and interaction in nature is akin to that which sends
people to line up for hours on end to buy the newest offering from
Apple. That thing is a feeling of seduction, discovery, and play. I
believe this mix of sentiments can be found in everyday life. We rarely
consider the things that we use daily until they’re taken out of our
routine. By melding these ordinary forms with unpredictable organic
ones, I create something familiar yet foreign that inspires a need to
touch and interact.

This tactile interaction with the piece
creates a completely different experience for the viewer, simply because
the work engages a sense other than sight – touch. By allowing the
audience this alternate form of connecting with the work, they can go
past the role of simply being an observer and become a performer.
Although my sculptures can be experienced through sight, they are not
complete and successful until the viewer makes the decision to reach out
and interact with the piece. The recognition of a part on a sculpture
is met with discovering another part that is new and alien – my
intention is that this feeling of exploration can apply to all ages and
types of people. This is how the audience can become performers. By
being seduced by the sculptures, and making the decision to touch them,
every person, no matter who they are, can transition to a very basic
level of play.
All of these intangible ideas find a home for
themselves in my sculptures. Adulthood mixes with childhood, familiar
meets foreign, and the traditional rules about keeping a safe distance
from a work of art become broken. The results are engrossing assemblages
of ceramic parts. Where on one side there is velvety-smooth porcelain,
the piece nesting on top of it has boisterous rubber coating running
down the side. Where one part is sided by creamy balloon-black flocking,
a spiky removable piece is slippery with gold spray paint. Where one
piece tugs on a memory of a familiar shiny bike chain, the idea is
interrupted by another shape that seems to be something vital and spongy
pulled off of the ocean floor.

Marion Nicoll GalleryAlberta College of Art + Design
1407-14th Avenue N.W.
Calgary Alberta
Phone | 403.283.7655
Web | marionnicollgallery.wordpress.com